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59, WASHINGTON STREET. 



LIFE 



O P 



JAMES MONTGOMERY. 



BY 



MRS. HELEN C KNIGHT, 

AUTUOR OF "LADY HUNTINGTON AND HER FRIENDS," 
"MEMOIRS OF HANNAH MORE," ETC. 



" who of protracted daya 

Made not, as thousands do, a vulgar sleep, 
But truly did he live his life." 



BOSTON 




GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET. 

NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO. 

CINCINNATI : GEORGE S. BLANCUARD. 

1857. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the j'ear 1857, by 

GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



PRINTED Br 
GEORGE C. HAND & AVERY. 



PREFACE. 



"We introduce to our readers James Montgomery. 

His English biographers, Mr. John Holland and Rev. 
James Everett, with affectionate assiduity have issued 
his life in seven volumes. Precious as the most insig- 
nificant memorials of him must be to personal friends, 
and interesting as are all the links which bind a man to 
his own country, a great portion of this ample detail 
possesses Httle, if any interest, to an American public. 
It therefore has been our work to sift out from this the 
true wheat of his Hfe, and mould it anew. 

With none of the classic richness of Rogers, the 
weird originality of Coleridge, the introspective sweet- 
ness of Wordsworth, or the fascinating romance of Scott, 
there is a moral earnestness, an unaffected grace, a 
purity of diction, which penetrate the heart and place 
his poetry among the permanent literature of England. 

The Christian element of his hymns gave them wings. 
Besides expressing what the renewed soul has felt through 
all ages, he gave utterance to many of the new forms 



iv PREFACE. 

of Christian life, with theu* corresponding inspirations, 
thrilling the spirit and firing it with fresh devotion to 
the Master's work. 

Not as a poet only does Montgomery claim our re- 
verent attention. As a model of the Christian citizen, 
he stands pre-eminent. 

Steadfastly promoting public improvements, and pa- 
tiently fostering every charitable enterprise, catholic in 
spirit and loyal to conscience, unselfish in his aims and 
rich in practical wisdom, prudent in counsel and warm 
in his affections, he identified himself with all the best 
interests of Sheffield, and took a high place in the con- 
fidence and respect of his towns-fellows. 

Nor were his labors of love bounded by Sheffield. 
Welcoming all the new-born activities, which mark the 
Church of Christ during the present century, he engaged 
in their furtherance with singular devotedness. And even 
when age and infirmities might justly have pleaded ex- 
emption from duty, a scrupulous fidcUty to its claims 
kept him to his post even to the end. 

" Born to stand 

A prince among the worthies of the land. 
More than a prince — a sinner saved by grace, 
Prompt, at his meek and lowly Master's call, 
To prove himself the minister of all." 

H. C. K. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 
EARLY DAYS — DEPARTUKE FOR ENGLAND — MORAVIAN SETTLEMENT 

IN YORKSHIRE — CHURCH FESTIVALS AT FCLNECK — CELEBRA- 
TION OF EASTER SUNDAY — POETICAL READINGS — MORAVIAN 
MISSIONS. 11 



CHAPTER II. 

SCHOOL-LIFE AT FULNECK — RUNNING AWAY — HIS JOURNEY — CON- 
SENT OF MORAVIAN FRIENDS — CLERKSHIP — HIS EARLY LOVE — 
GOING TO LONDON. 25 



CHAPTER III. 

MISSIONARY' EXPERIENCE — DISCOURAGING OCCURRENCES — DEATH 
OF HIS PARENTS — ARRIVAL IN LONDON — HIS WANT OF SUCCESS 
— CONTEMPORANEOUS GENIUS — NEW SCHOOLS OF POETRY. . 36 



CHAPTER IV. 

SETTLEMENT AT SHEFFIELD — NATIONAL DISQUIET — POLITICAL 
HYMN — GALES'S DEPARTURE — ESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRIS — 
INVOCATION TO THE IRIS — POSITION AS EDITOR. ... 51 



Vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGK 
POLITICAL ENTANGLEMENTS — CHARGE OF LIBEL AGAINST MONT- 
GOMERY — HIS TRIAL — IMPRISONMENT AT YORK CASTLE — RE- 
LEASE FROM PRISON — SECOND IMPRISONMENT. ... 65 



CHAPTER VI. 

PRISON LIFE — LETTER TO JOSEPH ASTON — "PRISON AMUSEMENTS" 
— RELINQUISHES POLITICS — POLITICAL FACTIONS — VISIT TO 
YORK CASTLE — LETTERS TO MR. ASTON — ANXIETY AND DEPRES- 
SION — RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS 70 



CHAPTER VII. 

SELF UPBRAIDINGS — CONFLICTS AND WAVERINGS — LETTERS TO HIS 
BROTHER — SPIRITUAL DARKNESS — RIGHT VIEWS OF SAVING 
FAITH — SPIRITUAL LIGHT — VIEWS ON HYMN WRITING — NOTE 
TO A QUAKER FRIEND 96 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EDITORIAL NOTICES — FUGITIVE POEMS — DR. AIKIN — HOME AFFEC- 
TIONS — "the WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND" — ITS RECEPTION — 
EDINBURGH REVIEW — NEW FRIENDS — DANIEL PARKEN — LIT- 
TLE POEMS — LYRICAL BALLADS — SOUTHEY's ADVICE TO EL- 
LIOTT. ........... 112 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS — LOTTERIES — VISIT TO LONDON — SLAVE- 
TRADE — "the WEST indies" — "THE WORLD BEFORE THE 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
flood" — VISIT FROM HIS BROTHER ROBERT — HART's-HEAD — 

THE poet's HOME — PARKEN'S MATRIMONIAL ADVICE — CRITICISMS 

— LETTERS FROM SOUTHEY AND ROSCOE 136 



CHAPTER X. 

MAY IN LONDON — MAY MEETINGS — '"THE GOOD OLD WAY" — RE- 
LIGIOUS SOCIETIES — COLERIDGE AND CAMPBELL LECTURE — LET- 
TERS TO PARKEN — LETTER FROM SOUTHEY — PARKEN's DEATH 
— LETTERS TO IGNATIUS MONTGOMERY — BUXTON. . . . 176 



CHAPTER XI. 

" THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD " PUBLISHED — NEW INTERESTS 
— ENGAGES IN RELIGIOUS LABORS — SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION — 
BIBLE SOCIETY — HIS FIRST SPEECH — CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
HIS BROTHER IGNATIUS — RE-ADMISSION TO THE MORAVIAN 
CHURCH — DAWNING PEACE — SUNDAY-SCHOOL LABORS. . . 197 



CHAPTER XII. 

LETTER FROM SOUTHEY — SARAH GALES'S DEPARTURE FROM ENG- 
LAND — LOTTERY ADVERTISEMENTS — APPEAL FOR MORAVIAN MIS- 
SIONS IN GREENLAND — LITERARY PROFITS — DEATH OF ELIZA- 
BETH GALES — DEPUTATION OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
— DEPARTURE OF GEORGE BENNETT — CORRESPONDENCE — MANI- 
FOLD LABORS — "daisy IX INDIA" — CALL FROM SOUTHEY — 
LABORS FOR THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS — AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN 
AT hart's-head 209 



Viii CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PAGE 
WITHDRAWAL FROM THE " IRIS " — REMINISCENCES — PUBLIC DIN- 
NER — TOKENS OF RESPECT — CHRISTIAN PSALMIST — SENTIMENTS 
ON HYMNOLOGY — LETTER TO MR. BENNETT — "THE STRANGER 
AND HIS FRIEND " — TOUR — " PELICAN ISLAND " — ANTI-SLAVERY 
MEETINGS — MRS. HEMANS — ROBERT MONTGOMERY — LETTERS 
FROM SOUTHEY — VISIT TO KESWICK. 240 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RETURN OF MR. BENNETT — DEATH OF DANIEL TYREMAN — EDITO- 
RIAL DUTIES — LETTER OF ADVICE TO A YOUNG POET — LEC- 
TURES IN LONDON UPON POETRY — DR. MILNOR — VOYAGES AND 
TRAVELS OF TYREMAN AND BENNETT — LETTER TO SAMUEL DUNN 
— ANTI-SLAVERY REJOICINGS. 270 



CHAPTER XV. 

INVITATION TO VISIT THE UNITED STATES — PROFESSORSHIP OF 
RHETORIC — MRS. HOFLAND — DORA WORDSWORTH's ALBUM — 
THE MOUNT — SCOTT — LECTURING — LETTER TO MR. BENNETT — 
DEATH OF MR. HODGSON — CHRISTIAN CORRESPONDENT AT LON- 
DON — DEATH OF ANNA GALES — LIFE OF SCOTT. . . . 294 



CHAPTER XVI. 

VICTORIA ON THE BRITISH THRONE — REJOICINGS AT SHEFFIELD — 
APPEAL FOR THE POOR — LETTER TO A " FAR WEST " COLLEGE 
— AT BRISTOL — LECTURING TOUR — CENTENARY OF METHOD- 
ISM — REV. WILLIAM JAy'S JUBILEE — DEATH OF IGNATIUS 
MONTGOMERY. ... 317 



CONTENTS. ix 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGE 
VISIT TO SCOTLAND — RECEPTION AT GLASGOW — DE. WARDLAW's 

SPEECH OF WELCOME — MONTGOMERY'S REPLY — HIS ACCOUNT 
OF THE MORAVIANS — PUBLIC BREAKFAST — RECEPTION AT HIS 
NATIVE PLACE — RECEPTION AT GREENWICH, STIRLING, DUNDEE, 
EDINBURGH, ETC. — DR. HUIE'S SPEECH — CONTRIBUTION FOR 
MORAVIAN MISSIONS — MONTGOMERY'S APPEARANCE IN COM- 
PANY 331 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

death of mr. bennett — robbery at the mount — visit to ire- 
land — death of southey — new poet-laureate — visit to 
buxton — lecturing at liverpool — letter to dr. raffles 

— premonition of old age — innovations — william ccllen 
Bryant's visit — longfellow — poem to "lily" — corn-laws 

— letter to HOLLAND — HARTLEY COLERIDGE. . . . 347 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WILBERFORCE — IIOWITT'S " HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE POETS " 

— VISIT TO WATH — REMINISCENCES OF YOUTH — ROSCOE CLUB 

— DEATH OF FRIENDS. ........ 364 



CHAPTER XX. 

EXTINCTION OF THE IRIS — LIFE OF KEATS — SHELLEY — MISSION- 
ARY JUBILEE — TRACT SOCIETY' JUBILEE — SICKNESS — POEMS — 
RECOVERY — VISIT TO FULNECK — CELEBRATION OF HIS BIRTH- 
DAY — TREE-PLANTING AT THE MOUNT — VISIT TO BUXTON. . 377 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PACE 
CONGREGATIONAL UNION — EBENEZER ELLIOTT — MORAVIAN HYMN- 
BOOK. — LETTER TO MR. LATROBE — NEW EDITION OF HIS WORKS 
— LETTER FROM LUCY AIKIN — TENNYSON — THE DECKIN CHARITY 
ANTI-CATHOLIC MEETING — CRYSTAL PALACE — BIRTH- DAY PRES- 
ENTS — MONTGOMERY MEDAL — MEMORIAL TREES — VISIT TO THE 
SCHOOL OF DESIGN — LECTURE BEFORE THE LITERARY AND PHILO- 
SOPHICAL SOCIETY — MEETING OF THE METHODIST CONFERENCE — 
gray's POETRY — " ORIGINAL HYMNS"— LETTER FROM LUCY AIKIN 
— AUTUMN TRAIT — AT HIS POST TO THE LAST — DEATH — FUNERAL 
^-CONCLUSION. 393 



LIFE OF MONTGOMEEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY DAYS — DEPARTURE TOR ENGLAND — MORAVIAN SETTLEMENT 
IN YORKSHIRE — CHURCH FESTIVALS AT FULNECK — CELEBRATION 
OP EASTER SUNDAY — POETICAL READINGS — MORAVIAN MISSIONS. 

"Grack Hill" — The name, like many other of the 
Moravian christenings, " Tents of peace," and " Pilgrim's 
resting-places," has a spiritual significance, pointing towards 
a religious faith, which cradled, schooled, and carried for- 
ward its disciples with a paternal lovingness and care. 

It is a settlement in the village of Ballymona, Ireland, 
founded by that " hardy worker and hearty preacher," as 
Whitefield calls him, John Cennick, one of the fruits of the 
Great Awakening, and for a time teacher in the famous 
school of Kingswood Colliers. Drifting from the Metho- 
dist to the Moravian current of religious lile, he established 
himself in Ireland, where his earnest preaching gathered a 
" Settlement of the Brethren," and " Grace Hill," as it was 
named, we cannot doubt, became a beacon light to many a 
lost and wandering one. 

Such it became to John Montgomery, a young man in 
the neighborhood, who left his all, — that all the tools of 



12 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

some humble craft, — to join the Brethren, by whom for his 
gifts or graces he was soon singled out to become a preacher 
of the gospel. In due time John married Mary Blackley, 
the daughter of a grave and serious matron, and together 
they embarked their fortunes in the self-denying and peril- 
ous labors which have distinguished the Moravian ministry. 
The young couple were sent to Irvine, a small seaport in 
Ayrshire, the first sj^ot in Scotland where these godly men 
found a footing, and Avere there domesticated in a humble 
cottage beside the chajDel wall, the pastor 

" much impressed 
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
May feel it too." 

Sorrow and joy entered their open door. Death took 
Mary, their eldest born, a child of eighteen months, who 
" was the first grain soAvn in the Brethren's burial-ground 
at Ayr." Then a ncAV-born took its place in the mother's 
arms, — James, a son, — on the 4th of November, 1*7 71. 

Two others, Robert and Ignatius, afterwards came to be 
cradled in the lowly parsonage. 

James was a yellow-haired boy of sweet and serious dis- 
position. Nature in her manifold forms of beauty early 
delighted his eye and spoke in tenderness or awfulness to 
his soul. The round red moon mounting on the hills, the 
young moon dropping behind the west, the rolling river and 
the dashing ocean, mingled their voices with the martial 
pageantry of royal birthdays, and all the sounds and sights 
of busy life in streets and at shop windows. What won- 
der and admiration stir the boy's mind as he looks out on 
the great marvels of the world into Avhich he is born ! ox', 
as he afterwai'ds sung, 



DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND. 13 

" Proud reason still in shadow lay, 
And in my firmament alone, 
Forerunner of the day, 

The dazzling star of wonder shone, 
By whose enchanting ray 
Creation opened on my earliest view, 
And all was beautiful for all was new." 

At home the gentle discourse of his mother, the devout 
sobriety of his father, the grave mien and godly sj^irit of 
the Brethren as they come in and sit by the j^astor's hearth, 
awaken within him reverent thought, and he early feels the 
presence of the Great Unseen presiding over all things 
without and within his little hemisphere. 

And so, " Heaven lay about him in his infancy." 

After a few years' residence in Scotland, the pastor and 
his family returned to their Irish home, and James passed 
from the gentle tuition of his mother to the harder tasks of 
the village schoolmaster. How much Master Jemmy 
McCafFery taught the boy Ave do not know, but the band 
of music at Gilgoran castle, near by, the castle, and the 
soldiery, often led away his truant attention, stealthily 
peeping over the tree-tops to freer and gayer scenes beyond. 
That James needed better schooling than Grace Hill could 
then afford, forced itself strongly upon the father, and a 
school in England was accordingly determined upon. 

A tearful parting between mother and child — his warm 
kisses on her wet cheek — the laughing caress of the baby 
in her lap — mother's benedictions and childhood's prom- 
ises — good-byes to familiar things — the stir of a departure 
about the door, and James has gone — gone never again to 
have a home, where 

" mother, wife, 
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life, 
2 



14 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Around whose knees domestic duties meet, 
And fireside ^^leasures gambol round her feet." 

A terrible storm overtook the little Liverjiool packet 
having on board the father and son. The howUng wind 
and groaning timbers filled the boy with fright. He 
looked into his father's face. It was calm as summer's 
evening. 

" Trust the Lord Jesus, who saved the apostles on the 
water," said the father. The boy cast himself on the same 
arm of strength and sweetly rested there. Peace stole 
over his aftrighted spirit, and he sat quietly through the 
storm 

" I would give a thousand pounds for the faith of that 
child," exclaimed the captain, more fully perhaps comj^re- 
hending the peril of his craft. But safely the little packet 
outrode the storm. They arrived at Liverpool, and the 
pastor and his son proceeded to Fulneck. 

Fulneck is a Moravian settlement in the parish of Calver- 
ley, in the neighborhood of Leeds, in Yorkshire. This also 
had its planting in the Great Awakening. Those familiar 
with that glorious era of moral renovation in which White- 
field and Wesley bore so distinguished a part, will remem- 
ber Benjamin Ligham, one of the little band of praying 
students at Oxford, who were first cross-laden wdth the 
name of Methodists, and then crowned with its spiritual 
eftulgence. The singleness and simplicity of the Moravian 
faith and its element of loving consecration to the Master's 
work early attracted -the attention of Wesley and Ingham, 
who at different times visited Count Zinzendorf, and took 
sweet counsel wdth the Brethren on the contment. 

It Avas in their pulpit at Fetter Lane that Whitefield and 
Wesley first preached, in their company that the earliest 



MORAVIAN SETTLEMENT IN YORKSHIRE. 15 

missionary tours were undertaken, and it was in them that 
they first beheld the power of that grace, which could fully 
deliver the soul from the bondage of sin and legal exactions 
and make it free in the free and glad obedience of joint 
heirship with Christ, the Redeemer, to the inheritance of 
the sons of God. 

Yorkshire, his native coiinty, was stirred into life by the 
strange and wonderful j^reaching of Benjamin Ingham, 
for the gospel seemed a new evangel in the mouth of this 
sturdy believer. Rustic and craftsman, high-born and 
lowly, flocked, to hear him. Conscience was aroused ; sin 
and holiness, heaven and hell, redemption and. retribution, 
had a meaning unfelt before. Moi'als were reformed, per- 
sonal and family religion rekindled, and little comj^anies of 
believers were gathered all over Yorkshire, disowned, in- 
deed, by the English Chui'ch, and yet, we may trust, living 
members of that living body whose head is Christ. 

Lady Margaret Hastings, sister-in-law of the Countess of 
Huntingdon, was among the first fruits of Ingham's spirit- 
ual husbandry, and it was from Margaret's lips that Lady 
Huntingdon first heard the language of heavenly rejoicing. 
Margaret afterwards united her fortunes with Mr. Ingham, 
and together they spent a life of Christian usefulness. 

Some Moravian Brethren followed him to Yorkshire, to 
fensure whose stay he leased them land for a settlement. It 
was a rough moor, near rude and boorish neighborhoods, 
where no seed of good had yet been strewn. And thither 
they came in 1748, with their farming tools and thrifty 
habits, their schools and their hymn-books, and Fulneck, 
with its Bruder-Haus, Schwester-IIaus, and Prediger-Haus, 
became the Moravian Goshen of Yorkshire. 

Here was brought James Montgomery at the tender 
age of six, and committed by his lather to the paternal 



16 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

giiardianship of the Brethren. The Fuhieck school at that 
time bore a highly respectable reputation, numbering pu- 
pils from every part of the kingdom. The religious char- 
acter of these schools is very remarkable. Though tlie 
discipline is strict, it does not seem to have been severe or 
irksome. Unlike the tyranny which Avas exercised, both by 
teachers over their pupils, and by older scholars over the 
younger, in other English schools, a genuine friendship 
seems to have existed between teachers and scholars. 
While little Robert Southey was unmercifully caned by 
his master at Bristol, and Coleridge was a moping, friend- 
less, half-starved Blue-Coat boy in London, " drinking small 
beer from wooden piggins and eating milk-porridge, blue 
and tasteless, on Monday, pea-soup, coarse and choking, on 
Saturday, beside an extra cut at the end of every flogging 
for his ugliness," James Montgomery seems to have been 
surrounded by an atmospliere of love, and sat at a table 
spread with good will, and bread as good. 

" Whatever we did," he tolls us, " was done in the name 
and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Avhom Ave were taught to 
regard in the amiable and endearing light of a friend and 
brother." 

Innocent pastimes mingled Avith daily duties, Avhile birth- 
day celebrations, excursions into the neighboring country, 
and visits from distinguished strangers, afforded opportu- 
nities for longer relaxation from the tasks of school. 

Over all these Avere flung the kindly restraints of the 
abiding presence of Jesus, the Lord, and a perpetual ac- 
knowledgment of his goodness seemed to have become 
the natural overflow of the heart toAvards him, as the 
giver of every good gift. 

It Avas customary for the boys of the different classes 
occasionally to take tea Avith each other. At the close of 



CHURCH FESTIVALS AT FULNECK. 17 

supper, they formed a circle, hand in hand, and sang a 
hymn. A change having been made, one day, in the or- 
dinary beverage, the Httle fellow Avhose lot it -was to say 
grace knelt down, — " Oh Lord, bless ns little children," 
was the devout utterance, " and make us very good ! We 
thank thee for what we have received. Oh, bless this 
good chocolate, and give us more of it ! " A petition, we 
presume, in which the little group heai'tily joined. 

The festivals of the church. Good Friday, Palm Sunday, 
Whitsunday, and Christmas, with their stately and sig- 
nificant emblems, were sacredly observed at Fulneck. 

The chapel, in its Christmas adornings, charmed the eyes 
of the children. Evergreens festooned the pulpit, bearing 
in front a scroll fringed with fir and holly, with the inscrip- 
tion, "Unto us a child is born." Precisely at five, the 
organ pealed foi'th its harmonies, the congregation arose, 
the clergy entered, and the choir sang its Christmas an- 
them. Tea was then handed round, and children's voices 
singing the touching melody, 

" Christ the Lord — the Lord most glorious — 
Now is born — oh, shout aloud," 

proclaimed their interest in the great transaction. 

" I shall not easily forget," says one, formerly a pupil at 
Fulneck, " the boys' sleeping-hall, a large room containing 
between one and two hundred beds. It was usual for us 
to meet there on the evening j^rior to Easter Sunday. A 
pianoforte was taken, for the occasion, to one end of this 
immense room ; over it was suspended a lantern, which 
threw a dim light on a splendid painting of a dead Christ, 
removed from the Brethren's house. When all had assem- 
bled, we stood for a fow moments in front of the picture. 
Then the full-toned piano, accompanied by a French bugle, 
2* 



18 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

broke the silence with one of those airs which for ages 
have been used in the Moravian Church. Tliis ceased for 
a moment, and we heard the sweet melody whispering 
around that vast hall, the whole of which was in darkness, 
gave the spot where we were gathered. Again we mused 
on the painting, and were almost startled by the breathless 
quiet of the place. The music recommenced, and we sang 
that fine old hymn — 

' Met around the sacred tomb, 
Frieuds of Jesus, why those tears ? ' 

" The next morning found us assembled at five o'clock in 
the chapel, joined by an immense crowd. The service 
opened with a voluntary on the organ, — the congregation 
arose, chanting as they walked, 'The Lord is risen in- 
deed!' On reaching their places, the Litany commenced, 
the responses to which were sung by the choir and congre- 
gation. On arriving at the part which refers to the church 
triumphant, Ave adjourned to the burial-ground, and there 
finished the service in the open air. 

" Those only who have witnessed it, can form any notion 
of its solemnity. The congregation formed a circle, in the 
centre of which was the officiating clergyman. The sun 
had just risen, and was lighting wp that splendid scenery, 
and the mists of the night were rapidly rolling away. In 
the distance, covering the liill, were magnificent woods; 
over us the mornhig birds carolled their early matins and 
then soared away. 

" It was in such a scene we offered this thrilling petition 
to heaven's God : — 

" Minister. — 'And keep us in everlasting fellowship with 
our brethren, and our sisters (here mentioning the names 
of those who had departed since the preceding Easter), 



CELEBRATION OF EASTER SUNDAY. 19 

who have entei'ed into the joy of then* Lord, and whose 
bodies are buried here ; also with the servants and hand- 
maids of our Church, whom thou hast called home within 
this year ; and with the Avhole church triumphant ; and 
grant that we may faithfully rest with them in thy pres- 
ence from all our labors. Amen.' 

" CONGKEGATIOIS". 

' They are at rest in lasting bliss, 
Beholding Christ their Saviour ; 
Our humble expectation is, 
To live with him forever ! ' 

" This verse was sung by the vast assembly, echoing along 
that beautiful valley, and mingling with the hum of bees, 
the ripple of the waters, the music of the wild bird, and, 
it may be, with the minstrelsy of unseen spirits. I have 
since witnessed the religious ceremonies of other bodies; 
and although it has been mine to minister at the altar of 
another communion, I must confess I have met Avith 
nothing so solemn, yet elegantly chaste, as these services 
of the Brethren's Church." 

While these scenes could hardly fail to have touched the 
most iinappreciative, upon a child of lively and tender sus- 
ceptibilities they awoke, like the winds sweeping over an 
air-harp, wild and mysterious music in the soul. 

The scenic life thus clothing those solemn truths, which 
at once kindle the imagination and awe the passions, gives 
a pictured vividness to the objects of our faith, peculiarly 
fascinating to the young. Religious emotion is excited, 
which, though not necessarily connected with moral reno- 
vation, deepens in the soul its sense of something lost and 
something yearned for, — its heavenly inheritance, — where 
peace is aifrighted by no sin and joy knows no chill. 



20 LIFE OF MO NT GO MEKY. 

Of the drift of his child-life at Fulneck, James Mont- 
gomery afterwards says : — 

" Here while I roved, a heedless boy, 
Here while through paths of peace I ran, 
My feet were vexed with puny snares, 
My bosom stung with insect cares ; 
But ah ! what light and little things 
Are childhood's woes ! — they break no rest ! 
Like dewdrops on the skylark's wings 
While slumbering on his grassy nest. 
Gone in a moment when he springs 
To meet the morn with open breast, 
As o'er the eastern hills her banners glow, 
And, veiled in mist, the valley sleeps below. 

Like him, on these delightful plains, 
I taught, with fearless voice, 
The echoing woods to sound my strains. 
The mountains to rejoice. 
Hail ! to the trees, beneath whose shade. 
Rapt into worlds unseen, I strayed : 
Hail ! to the streams that purled along 
In hoarse accordance to my song — 
My song that poured uncensured laj'S 
Tuned to a dying Saviour's praise. 
In numbers simple, wild, and sweet. 
As were the flowers beneath my feet." 

Poet-land already loomed upon the vision of the boy : 
and reverberations of its far off melody break upon his lis- 
tening spirit. 

Will the old Moravian hymn-book, with its quaint lyrics, 
pilot him there, or, by the subtle intuitions of genius, will 
he strike out a new track and claim a birthright footing to 
its prerogatives ? 



HIS POETICAL READINGS. 21 

Little license was allowed the boys at Fulneck for gen- 
eral reading. Indeed, upon this i:)oint, the pupils were 
fenced in by severe legislation, bad books being regarded 
by the Brethren as the quickest corrupters of good morals. 

A father once sent his son a small volume of choice selec- 
tions from Milton, Thomson, and Young, unobjectionable 
associates one would think ; the book, however, must first 
pass the scrutiny and the scissors of the teachers, when it 
was returned to the owner, so carefully pruned, that 
many passages were blotted out and whole leaves were 
missing. 

Poetry, nevertheless, was not wholly interdicted, for we 
find one of the masters, on a warm summer's day, betaking 
himself with his class to the fields, and, setting aside the 
regular recitations, entertaining it with a reading from 
Blair's " Grave." Most of the boys fell asleep. One atten- 
tive listener, at least, rewarded the indulgent master. Lit- 
tle James Montgomery gave himself up to the charms of 
the hour; and such suitableness and beauty did there 
seem in poet-numbers, that before leaving the hedge-row 
delight began to shape itself to purjaose, and with pro- 
phetic eye he beheld his poem one day scattering on 
others enjoyment like that which he was reaping. Barred 
as the gates of Fulneck were, jDoems now and then scaled 
its walls. The poet's corner of a village newsjDaper intro- 
duced the new Scotch muse, Robert Burns. Blackmore's 
"Prince Alfred" stirred up brave thoughts and brilliant 
schemes, 

" To grace tbis latter age witli noble deedj." 

Two volumes of Cowper came to hand ; the books, how- 
ever, though eagerly read, were laid aside with little relish 
for a second sitting. Their chaste beauty and exquisite 



22 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

naturalness found little favor from Master James, with 
tastes moulded by the mystic element and enthusiastic 
rhaj^sodies which then marked the Moravian literature. 
It required the juster estimate of more exact culture to 
discern the excellences of the Bard of Olney, which, in 
time, he was proud to acknowledge and admire. 

Stinted as was the intellectual nutriment craved by the 
boy, and much as there undoubtedly was to clip the soar- 
ings of his fancy, the poetic temperament will yet extract 
a living from the leanest soil ; and foreshadowings of its 
life-work will flash all along through its early paths. 

And so we find him rhyming, inveterately rhymmg, 
rhyming in spite of himself, jets if not gems, showing the 
drift of his inward life. 

At ten, he had a well filled volume of his own verses, — ■ 
gypsy children, we may Avell believe from the pious strains, 
which rose morning, midday, and at vespers, from the 
altars of Fulneck. 

Night often found his mind aglow with some favorite 
theme, nor would he sleep until it had shaped itself to 
measures jileasing to himself; thus wakefulness became a 
habit. And when he afterwards so graphically tells us how 
his 

" eyes roll in Irksome darkness, 

And the lone spirit of unrest 
At conscious midnight haunts his breast, 
^^Ticn former joys, and present woes, 
And future fears are all his foes," 

we can readily conceive it to have been an autobiograjDhical 
reminiscence, much to be deplored. 

The style of the boy's mind, running from the practical 
to the ideal, more given to reverie than to study, must 
needs, we think, have given anxiety to the sturdy fathers 



MORAVIAN MISSIONS. 23 

of Fulneck, His French and German were likely to have 
fewer charms than Kirkstall Abbey, a fine old ruin in the 
neighborhood, ivy-clad ; or pleasanter it were, to jieojile the 
odd-shaped fields on the hill-side opposite the school with 
the teemings of his mind, than to drill it to the regular 
beat of Latin verbs, or torture it Avith Greek translations. 
Accordingly we find a notice or two on the school records, 
that " J. M. was not using proper diligence in his studies, 
and was admonished thereupon." And inasmuch as he 
was destined for the ministry, we may sujDj^ose this lack of 
industry augured ominously for the future, in the estimate 
of his guardians. 

The parents of the boy were not near either by their per- 
sonal presence or by frequent letters to counsel or to urge 
him forward: and how far their symj^athizing solicitude 
might have steadied him in the strait path marked out for 
him, we can never know. When he was twelve, together 
they visited Fulneck, bringing their two younger sons, 
Ignatius and Robert, and remained three months at the 
Settlement, previous to leaving England for a missionary 
life in the West Indies. The Moravian missions were 
among the first attempts of Protestant Christians to evan- 
gelize the heathen ; and their zealous and self-denying 
labors, which no arctic cold could freeze and no tropic heat 
could wither, make a shining page in the annals of Christian 
valor. 

" Keep our doors open among the heathen, and open 
those that are shut," is a petition in the old " Church 
Litany of the Brethren." 

" Have mercy on the negroes, savages, slaves, and gyp- 
sies," was not merely a prayer of the lip, it was often the 
burden of a lifetime. 

And where Greenland hailed, 



24 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" from afar 
Through polar storms, the light of Jacob's star," 

mad the everlasting gospel smiled on the Ked men of 

" Ohio's streams and of IMissouri's flood, 
And the sweet tones of pity touched his ears, 
And mercy bathed his bosom with her tears," 

" the pool' Xegro scorned of all mankind," — the beautiful 
individuality of the invocation, " Bless our congregations 
gathered from the Negroes, Greenlanders, Indians, Hotten- 
tots, and Esquimaux ; keep them as the apple of thine eye," 
carries with it all the personal and endearing intimacy of 
the Christian name. 

A happy three months to the re-united family at Fulneck. 
The parting counsels of these parents, how tenderly faithful ! 
The yearnings of parental fondness on one side, the soldier- 
call of duty on the other. The stormy waters must soon 
part parents and children ; their earthly joui-ney may seem 
long, very long, and begirt with perils ; but the path to 
heaven is short, and bright Avith the beckoning gloines of 
heaven, — there may all meet, a re-united family for ever- 
more, among the Redeemed. This is the burden of the 
pastor's heart. 

December 2nd, 1783, Rev. John Montgomery and his 
excellent wife again take up their pilgrim's staff, and 
leaving their sons in England set sail for Barbadoes. The 
benediction of the Brethren follows them, 

" How precious the work prosecuted at such cost ! " 
This conviction lay far behind, blurred by many tears. 
Perhaps the children were scarcely conscious of it then, but 
it seemed to have been a golden thread in their lives after- 
wards. 



CHAPTER II. 

SCnOOL-LIFE AT FULNECK — RUNNING AWAY — HIS JOURNEY — CON- 
SENT OF MORAVIAN FRIENDS — CLERKSHIP — HIS EARLY LOVE — 
GOING TO LONDON, 

Lord Monboddo, a learned and eccentric Scottish j^eer, 
once visited the school at Fulneck, to whom the older and 
more gifted scholars were introduced ; but little heed did 
he seem to pay, until the bishop said : — " Here, my lord, 
is one of your own countrymen," bringing forward James 
3Iontgomery, who, indeed, had but just gained his birth- 
right. The judge started, and brandishing a huge horse- 
whip over the boy's head, cried out : " I hope he will take 
care that his country shall never be ashamed of him," 
"This," said James, many years afterwards, "I never 
forgot ; nor shall I forget it while I live. I have, indeed, 
endeavored so to act hitherto, that my country might 
never have cause to be ashamed of me, nor will I, on my 
part, ever be ashamed of her." 

However his country were likely to feel, it is certain his 
teachers, if not ashamed of him, were disappointed in him. 
Perhaps he did not immediately begin to feel the inspira- 
tion of the old peer's hopes. 

Admonition did not amend his ways, ISTo growing dili- 
gence gave promise for the future. School tasks he under- 
took with little zest and less success ; and reluctantly his 
3 



26 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

friends abandoned the prospect of beholding him some day 
in the ministry. 

What was to be done with the dallying boy ? — a perplex- 
ing question, debated over many an unpromising subject 
since then ; and all the more perplexing, if not unpromising, 
because the difficulty lay more in lack of persistency and 
purpose than any positive moral obliquities. 

What was done? "It was determined," runs the school 
record, " that J. Montgomery remain in the school and be 
prepared for a teacher in the same: when this was told 
him he seemed to be pleased with it." 

A year passes, and how fores it Avith the lad? The 
pleasure with which he received the announcement of his 
change of destiny, and the stimulus consequent thereon, 
have faded away, and another record in the school diary 
informs us that as " J. M., notwithstanding repeated admo- 
nitions, has not been more attentive, it was resolved to put 
him to a business, at least for a time," 

Do we not in our day reverse the case, and the less we 
know Avhat to do with a boy, ithe longer send him to school ? 
— school often being a sort of quarantine ground, where 
boys and girls are suflered to stay until it is ascertained 
whether they can safely shift for theniselves. 

Boys stimulated to study by the competitions of school, 
and provoked to unusual effort by strong but inferior 
motives, often fall behind and disappoint expectation when 
those motjives have ceased to operate ; so, on the contrary, 
those in whom there is much to be developed, often more 
slowly come to comprehend themselves ; and a life of keen 
mental activity and the gathering up of great quantities 
of raw material, to be wrought into a symmetrical and 
sinewy manhood, may often lie behind the listless glances 
and laggard movements of an idle boy. 



RUNNING AWAY. 27 

IIow "vras it with Montgomery ? Disappointing the 
favorite projects of liis friends, and. disclosing no marlced 
preference towards any of the common industries of life, 
his bosom yet thrilled with unutterable longings, and his 
mind was filled Avith day-dreams of a brilliant future. 

Like Javau, in his " World before the Flood," 

" bis foncy longed to view, 



The world which yet by fame alone he knew ; 

The joys of freedom were his daily theme, 

Glory the secret of his midnight dream ; — 

That dream he told not, though his heart would ache." 

Plainly school was no longer the place for him. So 
thought the Fulneck fathers, and he was apprenticed to a 
worthy man of the Moravian fraternity, who kept a retail 
shop in Mirfield, a neighboring hamlet. 

Here he remained about a year and a half, selling bread, 
writing poetry, and playing with a hautboy, — the latter 
engrossing the chief share of his attention. The only labor 
which, perhaps, survives this period, is his paraphrase of the 
113th Psalm, which the Archbishop of York was pleased 
to incorporate soon after its appearance in public, years 
later, into a collection of sacred lyrics for the use of his 
diocese. Which gave it celebrity, its poetry or its patron- 
age, it were perhaps invidious to inquire. 

What next ? " Having very little to do but to amuse 
myself," Montgomery tells us, " I grew more unhappy and 
discontented than ever ; and in an evil hour I determined 
to break loose and see the world. I was not bound to my 
master,. and knew that if I left him the Moravians could not 
compel me to return, though I was only sixteen. You will 
smile and Avonder, too, Avhen I tell you that I was such a 



28 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

fool as to rnn away from my master, with the clothes on my 
back, a single change of linen, and three and sixpence in my 
pocket. I had just got a new suit of clothes, but as I had 
been only a short time with my good master I did not think 
my little services had earned them. I therefore left him 
in my old ones, and thus at the age of sixteen set out to 
begin the world." So reasoned and acted Montgomery; 
like many others before and since, to w^hom breaking 
away from the fencings of api^renticeship or home has been 
by a sort of inward constraint ; not tempted by vicious 
inclinations, or seduced by wicked companionshij^s, but from 
a force from within, blind, yet imperative, urging on 
towards another sphere and a more genial atmosphere, 
where the life-work of the man was found and done. 

Though the act be an act of impatient emancipation from 
uncongenial employment or mistaken views, it is almost 
always regarded by a man of moral culture, in after years, 
with regret and sorrow. The perils of the step are then 
seen; the wounds inflicted upon kind if injudicious friends 
are then felt ; the rude uprooting of affections, to be Avith- 
ered perhaps before another planting, is all realized ; and 
though the end may have sanctified the means, and he, 
being led in a way he knew not, was led graciously on, yet 
this cannot altogether chase away the remorseful memories 
which so often linger around the first rash step. 

The mournful hazards of such a course are thus pictured 
by the poet in after years. 

" A star from heaven once went astray, 

A planet beautiful and bright ; 
Which to the sun's diviner ray 

Owed all its beauty and its light ; 
Yet deemed, when self-sufficient grown, 
Its borrowed glory all its own. 



HIS JOURNEY. 29 

A secret impulse urged its course, 

As by a demon jiower possessed, 
With rash, unheeding, headlong force, 

It -wildly wandered, seeking rest ; 
Till far beyond the solar range 
It underwent a fearful change. 

Dim as it went its lustre grew, 

Till utter darkness wrapt it round, 
And slow and slower as it flew, 

Failure of warmth and strength it found ; 
Congealed into a globe of ice. 
It seemed cast out from Paradise. 

At length amid the ab}'ss of space, 
Beyond attraction's marvellous spell, 

It lost the sense of time and place. 
And thought itself invisible : 

Tliough suns and systems rolled afar, 

AVithout companions went that star." 

Montgomery, Avitli his pack on liis back, and liis poetry 
in his pocket, takes silent leave of Mirfielcl, on the morning 
of the 19th of June, 1789, and starts on the journey of life 
alone j the great world all before him, 

" where to choose 

His seat of rest, and Providence his guide." 

How or where to steer his course he has no definite idea. 
His aim was to " go south," as adventurers of our day " go 
west," — London, probably, looming wp in the distance, by 

" Taste and wealth proclaimed 
The fairest capital of all the world," — 

the Mecca of many an adventurous poet on his i^ilgrimage 
to fome. 

On he trudged, by liedge-row and dusty road, that quiet 



30 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Sabbath day, making this turn or that according to no clear 
plan, nntil, at the close of day, he found himself at Doncas- 
ter, — surely an imusual way for Montgomery to be spend- 
ing holy time. Of the incidents of this day and the next 
nothing is known ; if sometimes, 2>arched and fainting under 
the noonday sun of June, he casts a long, lingering look 
behind, he does not tell lis ; if he sometimes thought of 
parents far away and brothers left behind, the tenderness 
does not unman him. On he bravely went, and the second 
night found him quartered at a small inn in Wentworth. 
There sat the wayfarer, with his bundle beside him on the 
bench, when another traveller entered, a young man, and 
called for a pint of ale. The two exchanged civilities. 
From a bow grew a bargain. In the course of talk. Hunt, 
for that was the young man's name, told Montgomery his 
father Avanted help, and advised him to come over to 
Wath, a neighboring village, the next morning, and offer 
his services. The homeless lad did so. To the shopkeeper 
he frankly disclosed his history, who Avillingly promised 
to hire him, jirovid^d the consent of his late master and his 
Moravian guardians could be gained. Counselled by him to 
write immediately, James returned to the Wentworth Inn 
to write and to await the answer. But how to j^ass the 
interval ? 

Wentworth is a small hamlet, imder the ancestral wing 
of Wentworth House, the broad domain of Earl Fitzwil- 
liam, whose courteousness and generosity made him the 
praise of the country around. The poet-boy betook him- 
self to his room and carefully transcribed a coj^y of his 
verses for presentation to the earl, who was then at home. 
With a fluttering heart he entered the park, and lingered 
about the daily haunts of its noble master. They met : 
the boy with a modest dignity placed his humble offering 



CONSENT OF MORAVIAN FRIENDS. 31 

in tlie kind earl's hand, and the earl, stopping, read the 
poem, and rewarded its hhishing autlior with encoxiraging 
words, it may be, but what was far more available in the 
present crisis of his affairs, a gold guinea. And no guinea 
afterwards, we venture to say, ever possessed the value of 
this. Here was patronage and profit on the first trial. 
How did it justify his estimate of the little manuscript, 
often, no doubt, slighted, and regarded A\'ith a jealous eye, 
by the practical lathers of Fulneek:. How did it come, a 
heaven-sent supply to his empty pockets. 

Let us hear the result of his appeal to his friends in his 
own words : " "When I had been on my travels about four 
days, I then wrote, as I always intended to do, to my mas- 
ter ; indeed, I left a letter behind me, declai-ing in plain 
terms the uneasiness of my mind, and saying that he 
should soon hear from me. I wrote to him for a char- 
acter or recommendation to a situation which I had heard 
of; conscious that no moral guilt could be laid to my 
charge, and that in all my dealings I had served him with 
the strictest integrity. My master laid my letter before 
the council of Mora^'ian ministers, who met at Fulneek to 
regulate the affairs of their society, and they unanimously 
agreed to write any recommendation which I might re- 
quii-e, if I obstinately persisted in my resolution to leave 
them ; but instructed him to make me any offers, and, if 
possible, to bring me back again. He came to me in per- 
son, where I waited for an answer. I was so affected by 
his appearance that I ran to meet him in the inn yard; 
and he was so overwhelmed with tenderness at the sight 
of me, that we clasped each other's arms as he sat on 
horseback, and remained weeping without speaking a word 
for some time. 

" It required all my resolution to resist his entreaties and 



32 LIFE or MONTGOMERY. 

persuasions to return, but I at length overcame ; and when 
he left me, the next day, he gave a very handsome written 
character, and also called on my future employer to recom- 
mend me. He also supplied me with money, and sent my 
clothes and other things which I had left behind." 

An interview and resi;lt surely creditable to all parties. 
The charge of ingratitude and want of confidence might 
have been easily scared up by less candid and judicious 
guardians ; and one is at a loss which most to admire, 
the frank integrity and inflexible firmness of the fugitive, 
or the forgiving tenderness of his abandoned friends. 

This was the turning j)oint in his life. He had broken 
open the fold-gate, and was now out on the rough highway 
of life. 

" Had I taken the right instead of the left hand road to 
"Wakefield," he says long afterwards, " had I not crossed 
over, I knew not why, to Wentworth, and had not Joshua 
Hunt noticed me there, it is quite certain that not a single 
occurrence of my future being, perhaps not a single thought, 
would have been the same. The direction of life's after 
current would have been entirely changed, whether for the 
better or the worse, who can tell ? I only know that I did 
xorong in rim7ii)ig atoay." 

Montgomery is, then, behind Mr. Hunt's counter, a re- 
spectable grocer of Wath, selling flour, shoes, calicoes, and 
wares of all sorts, to the adjoining neighborhoods. It 
would, perhaj^s, be diflicult to discern any caj^ital advantage 
in the change made, save in his own conscious sense of 
freedom. He is no longer under tutelage ; he is his own 
master ; and sufficiently master of himself not to inaugurate 
his freedom by anything which might cause repentance and 
shame hereafter. 

Wath, called the " Queen of villages " by the partial 



HIS EARLY LOVE. S3 

affection of its inhabitants, rises pleasantly on a fertile val- 
ley, about three miles from Wentworth House. It was 
quiet and rustic in the days of Montgomery's sojourn, 
with many legends of the old past nestling in its nooks 
and crannies. A maypole rose on the village green, the 
castings of a bell foundry rippled the smooth flow of ordi- 
nary life, and a monthly magazine distinguished it above 
all the villages of England for literary enterprise. 

The new clerk, we may conjecture, made small stir in 
the village circles, for he assiduously devoted himself to 
business, and spent his leisure hours with his books and 
pen. Indeed, his grave and serious demeanor invited little 
familiarity from the gay, while his habitual reserve inter- 
posed barriers between him and those whose society and 
sympathies Avould have proved a social profit to him. 

According to the chronology of a little poem, if it in- 
deed be autobiographical, Wath must be set down as the 
scene of an early and only love. The identity of the hero- 
ine, who gives name to the poem supposed to disclose the 
secrets of his heart, has sorely puzzled his friends. Of 
"Hannah" the poet himself gave no clue. Village tradi- 
tion points to Miss Turner, of Swathe Hall, the young 
mistress of a fine old family mansion between Wath and 
Barnsley, where he sometimes visited. 

Thus sings he : — 

" At fond sixteen my roving heart 
Was pierced by Love's delightful dart ; 
Keen transport throbbed through every vein, — 
I never felt so sweet a pain." 

After an interval of fluttering hopes and fears, and all 
the changeful play of passionate emotion, — an interval, how 
long we cannot determine, 



84 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" "WTien sick at heart witli hope delayed, 
Oft the dear image of that maid 
Glanced, like a rainbow, o'er his mind 
And promised happiness behind." 
Then 

" The storm blew o'er, and in my breast 
The Halcyon, Peace, rebuilt her nest; 
The storm blew o'er, and clear and mild 
The sea of youth and pleasure smiled. 

'T was on the merry morn of ]May, 
To Hannah's cot I took my way ; 
My eager hopes were on the wing, 
Like swallows sporting in the spring. 

Then as I climbed the mountains o'er, 
I lived my wooing days once more ; 
And fancy sketched my married lot, 
My wife, my children, and my cot. 

I saw the village steeple rise, — 
IMy soul sjirang, sparkling, to mj' eyes; 
The rural bells rang sweet and clear, — 
My fond heart listened in mine ear. 

I reached the hamlet ; — all was gay ; 

I love a rustic holiday ; 

I met a wedding — stept aside ; 

It passed — my Hannah was the bride 1 

There is a grief that cannot feel ; 
It leaves a wound that will not heal ; 
]\Iy heart grew cold — it felt not then ; 
"Wlien shall it cease to feel again ? " 

This affah' of the heart must have had its beginning 
somewhere at this period ; its unhappy sequel may have 
been several years beyond. Although the poem is believed 
by his English biographers to have been "founded on 



GOING TO LONDON. 85 

fact," from all we know of Montgomery he seems to ns 
the last person to have made himself the hero of such a, 
tale. This early disappointment may, indeed, account for 
the single life which he led, eminently suited as he Avas, 
from his shyness of general society, and his strong local 
and personal attachments, to enjoy the "social sweetness" 
of married life. 

Montgomery's first stay at Wath was a year's length ; 
when he formed the acquaintance of Mr. Brameld, the vil- 
lage bookseller of Swinton, in whose humble shop the only 
evenings which he spent from home were passed. Here 
ambitious hoj)es were kindled. Here the poet found an 
admiring auditor ; one who could not only appreciate ge- 
nius, but find it a market. Brameld had dealings with 
London booksellers, and with many a scrap of successful 
authorship did he fire the enthusiasm of the young clerk : 
unrequited labor, disappointed expectations, hungry, home- 
less authorship begging bread in London, could not dampen, 
but only add fuel to the flame. A volume of j^oems was 
prepared, which Brameld forwarded to Paternoster Row, 
followed in a few days by the young author himself. Mr. 
Hunt parted with his faithful servant xmwillingly enough, 
less sanguine, perhaps, of his success. In the family Mont- 
gomery seems to have met with the same friendship which 
marked his former homes, and which, though it could not 
woo him to stay, strewed his way with grateful remem- 
brances. 



CHAPTER III. 

MISSIONARY EXPERIENCE — DISCOURAGING OCCURRENCES — DEATH OP 
HIS PARENTS — ARRIVAL IN LONDON — HIS WANT OF SUCCESS — CON- 
TEMPORANEOUS GENIUS — NEW SCHOOLS OP POETRY. 

While the son is pitching his tent here and there in his 
wanderings for the Promised Rest, his parents are toiUng 
under a burning sun, and in face of difficulties grim enough 
to daunt the stoutest faith, for the spiritual emancipation of 
the poor Xegro in the West Indies. 

Their original destination Avas Barbadoes, afterwards 
changed to Tobago, at the urgent solicitation of a planter, 
anxious for the Christian instruction of his own slaves, and 
promising his influence to befriend the mission. 

In August, 1789, the missionary and his wife visited the 
island, whose moral desolations appealed strongly for their 
stay. 

" Attended the usual Sunday service in the town, with 
Mr. Hamilton's family," say they. " As yet no chuix-h has 
been built in the island, and divine service is performed in 
the town-house. Adjoining to this is the negro market, and 
the noise they make during the service is such that hardly 
one sentence of the discourse can be understood. About a 
thousand negroes are generally in the market-place, and I 
only saw one at the service. In the evening gave an 



MISSIONARY EXPERIENCE. S7 

exhortation to Mr. Hamilton's negroes. As this is done in 
the dining-room, and in the presence of the fhadly, the 
negroes are kept in good order." 

" During the following days," says Mr. Montgomery, " I 
paid some visits to the negroes, but found not one who 
showed the least desire to be converted- They all ruin 
themselves in soul and body by the same sins and abomina- 
tions that prevail in the other islands, and their whole 
minds seem absorbed in them, 

" We received about this time letters from the Synod of 
the Brethren, informing lis that it had been resolved to begin 
a mission in Tobago, and that we were appointed to enter 
upon it. God our Saviour knows our weakness and ina- 
bility; but in reliance upon him we have accepted the 
appointment, and commend ourselves and the poor negroes 
in this island to the prayers of aU our brethren everywhere." 

The French authorities of the island seem to have 
received the worthy couple with great friendliness. 

On their second coming, for a permanent residence, " As 
soon as the governor heard our names," they tell us, "• he 
gave orders that we should be brought on shore immedi- 
ately, and sent a soldier to conduct us to his house. He 
came to meet us, took me by the hand, and assured me, by 
his interpreter, that he greatly rejoiced at our being at last 
arrived to settle, and should be glad to render us all the 
services in his power. Oiu- goods were not examined : the 
officei^s placed on board for that pm-pose suiiered them to 
pass free. The word of Scripture appointed for this day 
was, ' He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep 
thee in all thy ways;' and we experienced a gracious 
fulfilment of this promise, even in behalf of us, his poor 
children." 

Political distiu-bances, a mutiny in the French garrison, 
4 



38 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

the conflagration of a greater part of the town, and the fear 
of a negro insurrection, for a time barred all missionary 
labor, and self-jsreservation swallowed up the beneficent 
plans of the planters. 

" You may easily suppose," writes the missionary home, 
" that these circumstances occasioned a general terror ; for 
no one knew what hour he might lose life and fortune. 
Both whites and blacks kept strict watch every night. 
During this dreadful period Ave looked confidently to our 
gracious and Almighty God and Saviour, as helpless chil- 
dren, and, believing he has sent us hithei*, oflTered up prayers 
and supplications to him in behalf of ourselves and the 
island, that he would in due tune silence the storm, dispel 
all darkness, and cause the light of his precious gospel to 
shine in the hearts of the poor negroes. We felt his peace 
amid the tumult, and put our trust under the shadow of his 
wings. To look out for a settlement in the present crisis is 
impossible, and no house could be procured with safety." 

The storm at length lulling, a house was obtained, to 
which they removed from the hospitable mansion of ]\Ir. 
Hamilton, through whose urgent solicitations the Brethren 
sent them thither. 

" The texts appointed for the day on which we began our 
housekeeping as missionaries," say they, " were remarkably 
suitable. ' lie bringeth them unto their desired haven ; 
therefore let them exalt him in the congregation of the 
people.' ' He which hath begun a good work in you, Avill 
perform it imtil the day of Jesus Christ.' " 

So are the children of God fed with Living Manna, xmtil 
" their paths," though struck in a parched wilderness, 
" drop fatness." 

Of the hindrances which stared them in the face they 
tell us : " Between our house and the town is a plain along 



DISCOURAGING OCCURRENCES. 39 

the sea-coast, upon which all kinds of diversion are practised 
on a Sunday afternoon. All the negroes Avho would come 
to us from the town must pass close by this place ; and 
thus it seems as if Satan had pitched his camp opposite to 
us, and would not suifer any one to pass to hear the gospel," 

In spite of discouragements, the missionaries began their 
labors with unflinching zeal, visiting the plantations, preach- 
ing, instructing, counselling, as time and opportunity ofl;ered. 
Cabin and hall Avere alike oijened to them. 

But the season seems to have been attended with unusual 
disaster. In a few weeks one of those hurricanes broke 
over the island, which carry such swift and sudden desola-. 
tion over land and sea. Vessels were driven ashore ; sugar 
cane and sugar works melted before the blast ; houses 
were levelled ; and men, women, and children were more or 
less injured by the flying rafters and drenching rains. Mrs. 
Montgomery was ill at the time, and in consequence of 
exposure to the peltings of this pitiless storm her recovery 
was retarded ; but of personal suflferings the husband makes 
little account in his letter home, summing up, at the date 
of September 6th, 1790, the results of his first quarter's 
labors on the island. 

" I have not been able, hitherto, to gain the attention of 
the toAvn negroes ; I shall therefore direct myself more and 
more to the plantation negroes, and Mr. Hamilton has 
kindly off"ered to j^rocure a house for this j^urpose. Though 
many gentlemen promised their aid in supj^orting the mis- 
sion, yet I plainly perceive the burden will fall chiefly upon 
Mr. Plamilton, Some of those who subscribed to the paper 
sent to the Synod have left the island ; others are dead. 
Some think that the Revolution in France has put an end 
to all success, and discontinue their subscriptions ; others 
have become discouraged by the misfortunes that have 



M LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

lately befallen them. Some who formerly gave me pressing 
invitations to preach on their estates, never mention a word 
of it now ; but our greatest grief is, that Ave have not as yet 
found a single soul that seeks a Savioiu-." 

Dark as the picture is, darker shadows fall over it, when, 
two months later, Maiy, the devoted wife, leaves her hus- 
band alone. 

She died on the 23d of October. And so gentle was her 
leave-taking, so sweetly leaned the bereaved one upon the 
Unseen Arm, that an English clergyman, who, with the 
jjlanter, stood by the bedside of the dying Christian, invol- 
untarily ejaculated, " God is truly present here ! " 

A snatch of poetry from their gifted son, thus groups, 
years afterwards, the sad events of this brief missionary pil- 
grimage : 

" My parents dwelt a little vrliile 

Upon a small Atlantic isle, 

Where the poor pagan Negro broke 

His heart beneath the Christian's yoke. 

Him to new life in vain they called, 

By Satan more than man enthralled, 

Deaf to the voice that said, ' Be free,' 

Blind to the light of Truth was he. 
Ere long, rebellion scared the land 

"With noonday sword, and midnight brand; 

The city from its centre burned, 

Till ocean's waves the fire-llood turned : 

Then came a hurricane, — as all 

Heaven's arch, like Dagon's house, would fall, 

And crush, 'midst one wild, wailing cry, 

Earth in the ruins of the sky. 

Beneath their humble cottage-roof, 

By lowliness made tempest proof. 

While wind, rain, lightning, raged around, 

And tumbling mansions shook the ground ; 



DEATH OF HIS PARENTS. 41 

While rafters through the air were borne, 

And trees were from their roots uptorn ; 

Vessels affrighted sought the strand, 

And ploughed long furrows on the land ; — 

]My father bowed his aching head 

About my mother's dying bed ; 

From lip to lip, from heart to heart, 

Passed the few parting words — ' "We part !' 

But echoed back, though unexpressed, 

'We meet again !' — rose on each breast: 

Amidst the elemental strife, 

That was the brightest hour of life : 

Eternity outshone the tomb, 

The power of God was in the room." 

" She is now at rest, but her great gain is a heavy loss 
to me," writes the solitary man from his island house, no 
longer home to him. " May the Lord our Saviour comfort 
me ! He is my only refuge, and I confess, to his praise, I 
feel his presence and peace in an abundant degree. As to 
futurity, I commit myself and the Mission into his gracious 
direction and care." 

As there was no churchyard or " God's acre " in the town, 
every family burying its dead on its own estate, a corner 
of their little garden received the dear remains of the 
departed one. No stone marks her grave, but a green 
moimd, grown over with tropical luxuriance, is pointed 
out as the last resting-place of this i>ious woman, typical, 
perhaps, that her spiritual seed shall yet inherit the land, 
and rise up to call her blessed. A few months after, her 
husband, borne down by sickness, left the island and came 
for comfort and nursing to his brethren in Barbadoes : aU 
efforts were used to restore his health, but without success, 
and " he fell happUy asleep, rejoicing in God his Saviour," 
4* 



42 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

on the 27th of June, 1791. In a secluded spot, fenced around 
by tamarind trees, the traveller is shown the burying-place 
of Sharon, the Moravian station, where Rev. John Mont- 
gomery, one of its early and most devoted missionaiies, 
rests from his earthly toils. 

In his " Departed Days," the son passes from the check- 
ered scenes of their earthly pilgrimage to catch a glimpse 
of the rewards of the faithful beyond. 

" My father — mother ; — parents now no more ! 
Beneath the lion-star they sleep, 
Beyond the western deep ; 
And when the sun's noon-glory crests the waves, 
lie shines without a shadow on their graves. 

Sweet seas and smiling shores ! 

Where no tornado-demon roars, 

Resembling that celestial clime, 

Where with the spirits of the Blest, 

Beyond the hurricane of Time, 

From all their toils my parents rest ; 

There skies, eternally serene, 

Diffuse ambrosial balm 

Through sylvan isles forever green. 

O'er seas- forever calm ; 
While saints and angels, kindling in his rays, 
On the full glory of the Godhead gaze, 
And taste and prove, in that transporting sight, 
Joy without sorrow, without darkness light." 

Xo one was sent to supply Mr. Montgomery's place at 
Tobago for several years, until, at the urgent solicitation of 
Mr. Hamilton, who seems to have been a life-long friend to 
the cause, the mission was renewed. The death of that 
gentleman soon after occurring, in conjunction with other 
unfavorable tokens, the island was abandoned in 1 803, and 



ARRIVAL IN LONDON. 43 

their efforts to evangelize its negro population were reck- 
oned for a time among the "unsuccessful missions" of the 
United Brethren. 

A heavy failure ; — "perils oft," heartaching separations, 
sweating toil, pitying tears, pleadings of mercy, importu- 
nate prayer from how many a Brethren's circle, from 
Greenland's icy mountain 

" To India's coral strand," 

the sacrifice of life itself, — a costly oiitlay of most precious 
things; and yet, a failure! Such failures are no strange 
anomalies in the history of the Church ; and, altogether, 
are they failures ? Who can pronounce them to be ? In 
the long struggle, who can tell what strengthening of spir- 
itual forces there may yet have been; what evolving of 
new powers ; what refining of the silver ; what castings off 
of dross ; how many prayers Avere laid up in the golden 
censor before the Throne of God ? What may seem defeat 
to us, may be only the obstructions of a little estuary to 
the advancing tide of God's Kingdom, "Avhich shall cover 
the earth, even as the waters cover the sea." 

To be the inheritors of an ancestry rich in faith and 
good works, is to possess a most royal legacy ; gold can- 
not buy it, neither can silver be the measure of its worth. 
This legacy did the three English orphan boys, James, 
Robert, and Ignatius Montgomery, come into possession 
of; and how they proved themselves not unworthy of their 
lineage, this brief volume will in some measure disclose. 

But they are as yet ignorant of their orphanage: the 
two younger are still at Fulneck, and of James, what 
offers and opens to him in London? 

With letters of introduction and recommendation from 
his friend Brameld, the young poet presents himself to Mr. 



44 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

Harrison, an efficient 2:)ublisher and bookseller of Paternos- 
ter Row, himself also an author, and, Avith an author's sym- 
pathies, supposed to look favorably ujjon the pages of the 
little manuscript already in his hand. 

The poems he declined to publish, but blunted the edge 
of his refusal Avith the offer of a clerkshij) in his establish- 
ment, besides words of kindly encouragement to cultivate 
the talents, shadowed but dimly, we think, in these early 
productions. 

Nothing damped, however, in his conscious ability to do 
something, Montgomery, at the suggestion of a friend, 
directed his attention to prose, and wrote a story for 
children. Simple Sammy. The story, though introduced 
to a publisher who " sold books, bound and gilt, for one 
haltpenny," was coldly looked upon. 

" You can write better than this," said the honest man 
of trade ; " you are more lit to write for men than for chil- 
dren." 

The plea that it was his first attempt in prose could 
not alter the verdict of the publisher; but, as before, 
gleaning encouragement even in the rejection, the young 
author betook himself to something for men, and a novel 
in imitation of the style of Fielding was the result. 

The manuscript was modestly put into a publisher's hands 
on his way to his country house, and left, with what flutter- 
ings of hope and fear, it is no difficult thing to imagine. 

What sentence will be passed upon it ? An anxious and 
exciting question, stirring in the bosom of the youth, as he 
presents himself before the arbiter of his fate, on his retvnn 
to town, envying, perhaps, the calmness of many a culprit 
at the bar in expectation of his sentence from the judge. 

" You swear so shockingly," was the brief return, " that 
I dare not publish the work as it is." 



HIS WANT OF SUCCESS. 45 

Astonishment sraottiered his disappointment. 

" This," he afterwards tells us, " was like a dagger to my 
heart, for I never swore an oath in my life, nor did I till 
that moment ever perceive, as I ought to have done, the 
impropriety of making fictitious characters swear in print, 
as they do in Fielding and Smollett, who had been my 
models in this novel ; but swearing was more the fashion 
of that age than the present." 

The harshness of the criticism was, however, modified 
by the ofier of twenty pounds for the manuscript, re- written 
and expurgated of its ofiensive qualities. This was done a 
few years later, but the novel never came to light, which was 
matter of devout thankfulness to the author in after life. 

To show the dauntless industry of the youth, in the teeth 
of all discouragements, an "Eastern Tale" was shortly com- 
pleted, and privately carried one evening to a bookseller's 
counting-room. Its title was condescendingly read, its 
pages and lines carefully counted, a rapid calculation of 
its size computed, and the manuscript returned. 

"Sir," replies the cautious book-vender, "your manu- 
script is too small, — it won't do for me, — take it to , 

he publishes such things." 

At this new and unexpected mode of estimating talent, 
Montgomery made a precipitate retreat, upsetting a lamp, 
smashing glass, and spilling oil, in the haste of his back- 
track to the street. 

"What Derrick wrote of Johnson might apply to the 
early attempts of many a young author since, tapping at 
the door of public favor. 

" Win no kind patron Johnson own ? 
Shall Jolnison friendless range the town ? 
And every publisher refuse 
The offspring of his happy muse ? " 



46 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Montgomery certainly fared no better than a great host 
of writers of both genuine and spurious talent, who only 
through sore travail of spirit have proved their great life- 
work, or sunk into that obscurity from which ambition, not 
bottomed on ability, tried imsuccessfully to lift them. 

Glimpses of living authors occasionally gladdened the 
young man's curious gaze, mostly of local note, scarcely 
known across the water. The distinguished men whose 
genius forms so rich a portion of the literary wealth of 
our time were yet on the threshold of manhood, uncer- 
tainly peering into the future, Avith serious and wondering 
oyes. 

" Nineteen years have elapsed," says Southey, " tmsatis- 
fied and aimless in Bi'istol, since I set sail on the ocean of 
life, in an ill-provided boat. The vessel weathered many 
a storm, and I took every distant cloud for land. Still 
l^ushing for the Fortunate Islands, I discovered that they 
existed not for me ; and that like others, Aviser and better 
than myself, I must be content to wander about and never 
gain the port. Nineteen years ! and yet of no service to 
society. Why, the clown who scares crows for two pence 
a day is a more useful member of society. He preserves 
the bread which I eat in idleness." 

And yet it was not idleness, though it might prove un- 
productive labor ; for the complaining youth had already 
burned ten thousand of his verses, the same number pre- 
served, with fifteen thousand worthless beside ; an amount 
of scribblmg which, with his love of literature, took him 
from the severer tasks of school. 

Coleridge, an unsuccessful competitor for college prizes, 
and burdened with college debts, quits Cambridge and 
returns to London, where, if not precisely now, a little 
later, he strolls down Chancery Lane, a j^rey to despairing 



CONTEMPORANEOUS GENIUS 47 

and miserable thoughts. A recruiting agent crosses his 
path, and in one of those sudden impulses which unmade 
the man, he enlists in the 15th Light Dragoons: but a few 
months of friendly messing and awkward horsemanship were 
all that marked his term of military service. 

The two, Coleridge and Southey, have not yet met to 
generate their scheme of foundmg a new republic in the 
wilds of America, where virtue was to be ascendant, aris- 
tocracy elbowed out of the way, and all those social evils 
which beleaguer society would be forever banished, 

Scott, the genial and light hearted Walter, three months 
older than Montgomery, is at his hapj^y Scottish home in 
George's Square, Edinburgh. "We shall find him in his 
favorite "den," — a small room in his father's house, already 
an old curiosity shop, where Roman coins, a Lochabar axe, 
and quaint-looking books, reveal the leanings of his mind ; 
or, perhaps, he is climbing Arthur's Seat and Salisbury 
Crags, or strolling over Flodden or Chevy Chase, or listen- 
ing to the stirring stories of the old Highland Chiefs of 
'45 ; hoarding up in the capacious storehouse of his memory 
that multifarious material which he afterwards wrought, 
with such marvellous skill, into the literary history of 
England. 

Lamb is in the India House, and Rogers is perfecting 
himself in all the accomplishments of the age ; at work also 
on the "Pleasures of Memory," surroimded by wealth 
which does not enervate him, — both Londoners and loving 
London, and thinking, with Madame De Stael, that there 
is "no scene equal to the high tide of existence in the 
heart of a jjopulous city." 

This period was characterized by the subsidence of that 
wave of renovated religious feeling which rolled over Eng- 
land and America a century ago, known in the history of 



48 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

tte church as the "Great Awakening," and by the rolling 
in of that tide of French infidelity and bold questioning 
of all sacred things, which preceded, and in a sense created, 
the French Revolution and its attendant horrors. 

The effects of that awakening had not, indeed, passed 
away with the death of tlie remarkable men who repre- 
sented it. An improved tone of morals, a more scriptural 
cast of piety, a deeper sense of accountability for the moral 
evils of the world, out of which issued the reformatory 
institutions and missionary enterprises of our day, were its 
more obvious fruits ; and both the church and the nation 
were better prepared to grapple with the hvmgry democracy 
and the fanatic free-thinking which broke out all over 
England, as well as to recognize Avhat the true spirit of 
progress sometimes too passionately demanded. 

The political tragedies which were enacted, the tumbling 
down of hoary institutions, the hurried tread of events, the 
strange and resistless entrance of the Napoleonic element 
into the politics of Europe, the boiling and seething of 
fiery poUtical excitements and fiercely debated reformatory 
schemes, the mighty conflicts between truths and errors, 
mistaken zeal and a wise conservatism which stirred the 
great heart of Christendom, undoubtedly had much to do 
with forming the literary men who adorned the early 
part of the present century, though we may not be able 
distinctly to trace either in them or their works the stormy 
elements which rocked their cradles, swept over their boy- 
hood, and shaped their lives. 

In poetry new forms and schools began to appear. 
While the essence of poetry is the same through the ages, 
its expression varies with the sinuosities of the times, as 
the banks and bed of a river change the expression of its 
waters ; now shallow, and now turbid ; now idly dallyijig 



NEW SCHOOLS OF POETRY. 49 

with the lilies among the sedges ; now roaring defiance at its 
rocky barriers; now rolling with deep and majestic sweep, 
beautiful and resistless in its strength. 

Every epoch is inaugurated by its poets. The old age 
of an era has little to offer the poet ; its worth has been 
embalmed and its heroisms sung ; its withered vigor and 
worn habits may, indeed, give point to an epigram or adorn 
a tale, but little is left to kindle inspiration, and much to 
smoulder it : while a new era, through a thousand open- 
ings, as the brazen throats of a volcano herald the ujjheav- 
ing within, quickens with its hot breath the intellectual 
insights and creative powers of genius. 

Emancipation from old conventionalities opens the door 
to a more natural and independent inward life. The j^oet, 
feeling himself less amenable to jDrescribed models, dares to 
follow his unfettered impulses, and work out, for and by 
himself, his own ideals of poetic excellence. New forms of 
society beget more liberal views, a nearer approach to the 
true vitalities of life, and a clearer view of what is genuine 
and pei'raanent from what is artificial and transitory. New 
ways are indeed not easy ways. Critics, born of the past, 
solemnly and scornfully jirotest. 

" Cold approbation gives the llnfrering bays ; 
For those who durst not ceusure, scarce can praise." 

The world is slow to forgive originalities ; while the pub- 
lic, cautious yet over curious, " ask for more." 
Happy he, who, 

" though the world has done its worst 
To put him out by discords most uukind," 

bravely and patiently works on ; strong in inward might, 
5 



50 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

fervent "with spiritual urgency ; the storms of sad confu- 
sion neither shaking his purpose nor bUncling his vision. 

" For, seeing thus the course of things must run, 
He looks thereon not strange, but as foredone. 
* * * * He looks thereon, 

As from the shore of Peace, with unwet eye, 
And bears no venture in Impiety." 



CHAPTER IV. 

SETTLEMENT AT SHEFFIELD — NATIONAL DISQUIET — POLITICAL HYMN 
— GALES'S DEPARTURE — ESTABLISHMENT OF THE IKIS — INVOCA- 
' CATION TO THE IRIS — POSITION AS EDITOR. 

Montgomery's stay in London did not last beyond a 
year. His clerkship at Harrison's afforded liim a comfort- 
able living, and happily prevented his bringing away any 
of the sorry experiences, which talent dogged by poverty 
often encountered in the by-ways of that great metropolis. 

Disappointments he indeed had, but those only which 
chasten, without seriously depressing ; serving to bring men 
to a juster estimate of themselves, and directing them to 
that toil without which the brightest abilities are vainly 
given. 

Self-help is better than patronage : so Montgomery 
thought, as he turned his back on London, in the month 
of March, and took a stage-coach lumbering to Wath, in 
every respect, we doubt not, a wiser man. Having suf- 
fered none of the hardships of poverty, so, also, he had 
lapsed into none of the corrupting seductions of city life. 
His shyness of society, and the reflective cast of his mind, 
while they might have sometimes hindered his introduction 
to scenes and j^laces favorable to intellectual quickening, 
helped to j^rcserve that purity of moral principle which 
was the beauty and excellency of his character. 



62 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

His old master on the bfinlcs of the Dearne cordially wel- 
comed him back, and he resumed his old post at the desk, 
in his counting-room, to look out for a more fortunate turn 
to his affairs. Xor was he long waiting. 

Collecting accounts one day at Great Houghton, Mont- 
gomery took up a newsi^aper and read the following adver- 
tisement : " Wanted, in a countmg-liouse in Sheffield, a 
clerk. None need apply but such as have been used to 
book-keeping, and can produce imdeniable testimonials of 
character. Terms and specimens of writing to be left with 
the printer." 

The young man, now just twenty-one, recognized the 
situation as one which he could suitably fill, and imme- 
diately despatched a letter to the advertiser, offering his 
services, and soKciting an interview. The result was a visit 
to Sheffield and his engaging the place. 

Joseph Gales, his new employer, was printer, bookseller, 
and auctioneer, — a triad of vocations not unusual at that 
time ; and, in addition, editor of the Sheffield Megister^ a 
respectable weeldy of some note in its day. 

On the second of April, 1792, the young man came to 
his new lodgings in Mr. Gales's family at the Hartshead, 
where the handsome and commodious shop of his master 
was one of the most conspicuous buildings on the street ; 
while its shelves, lined with books, must have seemed to 
the hungry young clerk an inexhaustible supply of daily 
food. 

Sheffield then was not the Sheffield of the present. Its 
fashionable promenade, — " Ladies' "Walk," — is now only a 
shabby street, with scarce a vestige of its past gentility. 
Instead of three or four churches, churches and chapels, a 
score or more, testify to its modern growth. Its famous 
cutlery has altered in quantity rather than quality, giving 



SETTLEMENT AT SHEFFIELD. 53 

it only wider fame ; while the tall chimneys of its great 
steam engines are mom;ments of its capital and labor, 
enriching the rich, and pouring comfort into the lap of 
honest industry. 

Mr. Gales's family, in the bosom of which Montgomery 
was soon domesticated, consisted of a wife and three chil- 
dren. His father, mother, and three sisters, resided in the 
l^leasant village of Eckington, s^ix miles south of Sheffield, 
— a delightful summer walk, amid the choice beauties of 
English rural scenery. 

Mrs. Gales was herself a woman of literary tastes, oc- 
casionally contributmg to the columns of her husband's 
paper, and the author of a novel in three volumes, of 
how much local celebrity we do not know. 

Thus was Montgomery surrounded by influences agree- 
able to his tastes, and favorable to his mental improvement. 

The author of the English Garden lived a few miles 
off, at the Ashton rectory ; and though a " real living poet, 
who had published a volume," was a sight much coveted 
by our poet, he never happened to have met Avith Mason. 
Who first gratified this natural curiosity we do not find, 
for it was possibly when curiosity was somewhat abated 
of its youthful glow. 

But if not a poet, a living poem crossed his path, — the 
ragged proof sheets of the Pleasures of Memory from 
the pocket of a compositor, newly arrived from a London 
office, where it had been printed. It bore no author's 
name, and all the printer could reveal of its paternity 
was that one "Parson Harrison" was suj^posed to be the 
writer. 

It shortly appeared with Rogers's name, and was received 
>vith kindly courtesy in the literary circles of England. 

Perhaps we cannot better mtroduce our readers into the 
5* 



54 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

stirring scenes wliich markecl the time of Montgomery's 
engagement with Mr. Gales, than by a retrosijective glance 
at them, given in his own words, 

"I came to Sheffield in the spi'ing of 1'792, a stranger 
and friendless, without any prosjDect or intention of making 
a long residence in it, much less of advancing myself, either 
by industry or talents, to a situation that should give me 
the opportunity of doing much evil or good, as I might act 
with indiscretion or temperance. The whole nation, at that 
time, was disturbed from its propriety by the example and 
influence of revolutionized France ; nor was there a dis- 
trict in the kingdom more agitated by the passions and 
prejudices of the day than this. The peoj^le of Sheffield, 
in whatever contempt they may have been held by 
those ignorant of their character, were then, as they 
now are, a reading and thinking people. According to 
the knowledge Avhich they had, therefore, they judged 
for themselves on the questions of reform in parliament, 
liberty of speech and of the press, the rights of man, and 
other problems, concerning which the wisest and best of 
men have been divided, and never more so than at the 
period mentioned, when the decision either way was not 
to be merely sj^eculative but practical, and to affi3ct per- 
manently the condition of all classes in the realm, from 
the monarch to the pauper, — so deep, comprehensive, and 
prospective was the view taken by everybody on the issue 
of the controversy. 

" The two parties in Sheffield, as elsewhere, arranged 
themselves on the contrary extremes ; some being for ever- 
thing old, the rest for everything that Avas new. There 
was no moderation on either side ; each had a little of the 
truth, while the main body of it lay l)etwcen : yet it was 
not for this they were coutendmg (like the Trojans and 



NATIONAL DISQUIET. 55 

Greeks for the body of Patroclus), but for those few dissev- 
ered limbs which they already possessed. 

"It Avas at the 'lieight of this great argument' that I was 
led mto the thickest of the conflict, though, happily for 
myself, under no obligation to take an active share in it. 
With all the enthusiasm of youth, — for I had not then 
arrived at what are called years of discretion, — I entered 
into the feelings of those who avowed themselves the 
friends of freedom, justice, and humanity. Those with 
whom I was immediately connected verily were such ; and 
had all the reformers of that day been generous, upright, 
and disinterested, like the noble minded proj)rietor of the 
Sheffield Register the cause which they espoused would 
never have been disgraced, and might have prevailed, even 
at that time, since there could have been nothing to fear, 
but everything to hope, from patriotic measures supported 
by patriotic men. 

" Though with every pulse of my heart beating in favor 
of the popular doctrines, my retired and religious educa- 
tion had laid restraints upon my conscience, — I may say 
so fearlessly, — which long kept me back from personally 
engaging in the civil war of words, then raging through 
the neighborhood, beyond an occasional rhyme, paragraph, 
or essay, w^ritten rather to show off my literary than polit- 
ical qualifications. Ignorant of myself, and inexperienced 
hi the world, I nevertheless was preserved from joining 
myself to any of the political societies until they were 
broken up in 1794, when I confess I did associate with 
the remnant of one, for a purpose which I shall never be 
ashamed to avow, — to support the fimilies of some of the 
accused leaders who Avcre detained prisoners in London, 
under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and were 
finally discharged without having been brouglit to trial.'' 



56 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Mr. Gales, it is seen, affiliated with the popular party. 
His sympathies were strongly aroused for the unhappy 
French, in their strivings for an ideal freedom destined 
not then to be realized; for national self-government can 
only be attained by a self-governed people. He was 
consequently opposed to the war which Pitt was deter- 
mined to Avage with France and the Revolution, in pre- 
j paration for which recruiting agents Avere in every town 
enlisting men for the service. A third element of political 
agitation consisted in the advantage taken of the time to 
urge parliamentary reform, — a fuller rej^resentation of the 
people in the national counsels, — whicli, indeed, was no 
new feature in the politics of the country, Pitt having elo- 
quently advocated it several years before. French suc- 
cesses, not yet excesses, had given new significance to 
the question, and brought it before the peojile with all 
the fresh possibilities of the times, whose clamorous and 
ill-advised advocacy alarmed the Crown, and intimidated 
some of its staunchest friends. 

In Sheffield, a popular demonstration, in the shape of a 
jDublic dinner at the Tontine, in celebration of the revo- 
lution of 1CS8, was an offset to the quartering of two 
hundred cavalry in the town, and the drumming up of re- 
cruits on the i^art of the government. The war prospects 
cast a general gloom over the country, not only because 
its avowed objects were not generally sympathized with, 
but on account of the strain and distress which war natu- 
rally brings upon the industry and commerce of a country 
like that of England, in need of so great a foreign market 
for her goods. 

The Sheffield JRegister was an earnest and able, if not 
always a prudent sheet, and its large subscription list 
attests its popularity, having reached, we are told, two 



POLITICAL HYMN. 57 

thousand and twenty-five names, a notable number in those 
days. 

Its cohamns were opened to our aspiring author, a temp- 
tation certainly not to be resisted, and various articles, — 
stories, squibs, satires and sonnets, — from time to time ap- 
peared, all having reference to the times, and whatever 
their pertinence then, possessing no merit to perpetuate 
them beyond their generation. These, he afterwards 
mourned over as " youthful follies," — an indication of the 
searching self-scrutiny of a sincere Christian ; perhaps they 
were, more justly, only the early fall of unripe fruit for 
the better perfecting of that which remained. 

A royal proclamation having been issued for a public fast 
on February 4, 1794, the Sheffield "patriots" gave to the 
occasion their own drift, and assembled in large numbers 
in an open field : their prayers, speeches, and resolutions, 
of questionable prudence perhaps, and little more, seen 
through jealous and excited feeling, were twisted into 
constructive treason by the government officials, and some 
of the prominent actors figured in the state-trials of that 
day. Montgomery furnished the hymn, which has more 
politics than poetry. What smattering of sedition it has 
the reader may judge : 

" Oh God of Hosts, tlilne car incline, 
Regard our prayers, our cause be thine ; 
When or2)hans cry, when babes complain, 
When widows weep, can'st Thou refrain ? 

Now red and terrible, thine hand 
Scourges with war our guilty land ; 
Europe thy flaming A'cngeance feels, 
And from her deep foundations reels. 



58 JAMES MONTGOMERY. 

Iler livers bleed like miglity veins ; 
Her towers are ashes, graves lier plains ; 
Slaughter her groaning vallies fills, 
And reeking carnage melts her hills. 

Oh Thou, whose awful word can bind 
The roaring waves, the raging wind, 
JSIad tyrants tame, break down the high, 
Whose haughty foreheads beat the sky. 

Make bare thine arm, great King of kings ! 
That arm alone salvation brings ; — 
That wonder-working arm, which broke 
From Israel's neck the Egyptian's yoke. 

Burst every dungeon, every chain, 

Give injured slaves their rights again : 

Let truth prevail, let discord cease, 

Speak — and the Avoiid shall smile In peace." 

Men had already been arrested and sentenced on charges 
of sedition and hbel ; and that there were men, Avho, taking 
advantage of the general fermentation, delighted to spread 
terror by infamous rumonrs, and even serionsly plotted 
against the existing government of the reahn, there can 
be no doubt ; but many a trial and subsequent pardon of 
the criminal prove that "contsructive treason" was easily 
framed, and that genei'ous sympathies, equivocally ex- 
pressed perhaps, was the head and front of the offending. 
In the face of fourteen years transportation, the times may 
have well been deemed perilous, and notoriety was easily 
gained upon very small capital. 

In April, an excited meeting was held at Castle Hill, 
where the speakers, more vehement than discreet, gave 
occasion for other arrests. Mr. Gales fell under suspicions, 
and in times when to be suspected was to be endangered, 



GALES'S DEPARTURE. 59 

rather than run the risk of Old Bailey or Botany Bay, his 
friends counselled flight. lie was sought, but could not 
he found. And on the following week his valedictory ap- 
peared in the columns of the Heglster. 

" Could my imprisonment," adds the fugitive editoi', " or 
even death, serve the cause which I have espoused — the 
cause of liberty, peace, and justice — it would be cowardice 
to fly from it ; but convinced that ruining my family and 
distressing my friends, by risking either, would only gratify 
the ignorant and malignant, I shall seek that livelihood in 
another land which I cannot possibly obtain in this. To be 
accused is now to be guilty ; and however conscious I may 
be of having neither done, said, or written anything that 
militates against peace, order, and good government, yet 
when I am told that witnesses are suhorned to swear me 
guilty of treasonable and seditious practices, it becomes 
prudent to avoid such dark assassins, and to leave to the 
informers and their employers^ the niortifi cation of know- 
ing that, however deep their villainy was planned, it has 
been xmsuccessful." 

With this the Register closed its career, after an ex- 
istence of eight years. Mr. Gales's property was attached, 
and bankruptcy and ruin stared him in the face. He fled 
to the Continent, and was soon followed by his young 
family. Crosses tracked him. After severe hardships and 
l^rivations, he came to this country, and established the 
Raleigh Register. Industry and talent met their due 
reward. " Gales and Seaton," the long, widely-known, and 
able publishers of the Nationcd Intelligencer^ in Washing- 
ton, are branches of this parent stock, the first his eldest 
son, and the other the husband of one of his daughters. 
So has our country been enriched by protection vouchsafed 
to exiled worth. 



60 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Montgomery again found himself adrift. He beheld a 
pleasant home rudely broken up; fair prospects suddenly 
blasted ; a stricken wife forsaking the dear and delightful 
intimacies of youth ; children driven to poverty. The circle 
which had embraced him in its genial hospitalities, and the 
generous man who had taken him to his bosom, Avere swept 
away and himself left, a fragment of the wreck. Keenly 
must he have felt the distresses of his friends, and bravely 
did he stand by the fallen family, with ready sympathy 
and timely succor. But in this new emergency, what was 
he to do? Start a new paper upon the old premises? 
This was suggested. A more serious question, — lohere 
was the capital to begin with ? A gentleman, till then 
almost unknown to the young man, offered to advance 
the money and become a partner in the enterprise; — a 
proof that his stay at Sheffield had been long enough, 
short as it was, to inspire men with confidence in his abili- 
ties and integrity, and to determine in some measure the 
sources of his own strength. 

The last issue of the Register contained the prospectus 
of the new editors, and their sheet was looked for with 
more than ordinary interest on the following week. 

On the 4th of July, 1794, appeared the first number of 
the JWs, wearing the conciliatory head-piece : — 

" Ours are the plans of fair, delightful Peace, 
Unwaxped by party rage, to live like Brothers." 

The poet's corner of its predecessor had been styled " The 
Repository of Genius." This interesting locality in the 
Iris was dubbed " Comptuat, or the Bower of the Muses," 
the conceited and unintelligible title being an anngram 
formed from the initial letters of the names of the Muses. 



INVOCATION TO THE IRIS. 61 

Barbara Horle, afterwards Mrs. Hofland, first occupied 
this Bower iu an invocation to the Iris^ expressive of its 
priucijiles. 

" Oh say, art thou tlie bright-eyed maid, 
Saturnia's messenger confest ? 
Does sacred truth thy mind pervade, 
And love celestial warm thy breast ? 

Com'st thou with covenanted bow, 

Blest signature of heavenly peace, 
To lay the wars of faction low, 

And bid the wars of discord cease ; 

The various forms of good intent, 

In one pure social league to bind, 
By prudence taught, through virtue bent, 

To reconcile the public mind ? 

Are these thy aims ? bright vision, hail ! 

Midst Freedom's clouded atmosphere, 
No storms thy genius shall assail, 

Nor latent mischiefs hover near. 

Fair be thy form, and gay thine hue, 

In learning's Tyrian lustre drest, 
Gix)unded on truth's celestial blue, 

Tinged from the Muses' yellow vest. 

Far may thy glowing beauties shine, 

And glad success secure thy beam, 
While reason mild and peace divine 

Roll o'er the earth their lucid stream." 

Its political platform is more fully disclosed in the follow- 
editorial : — 

" We beg leave to assure the public," says the maiden ad^ 
dress of the new firm, " that every endeavor will be used to 
6 



62 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

render it "worthy of their patronage ; and if a careful selection 
of the earliest intelligence can recommend it to their favor, 
they doubt not of its being honored with a liberal support. 
They profess themselves desirous to avoid, in this publica- 
tion, tlie influence of party siririt. Like other men, they 
have their own political opinions and attachments ; and 
they have no scrujile to declare themselves friends to the 
cause of Peace and Keform, however the declaration may 
be likelj' to expose them in the present times of alarm to 
obnoxious epithets and unjust and ungenerous reproaches. 
But while they acknowledge themselves imconvinced of 
the necessity or expediency of the present war, and fully 
persuaded that a melioration of the state of the representa- 
tive body is intimately connected Avith the true interests of 
the nation, they declare their firm attachment to the Con- 
stitution of its Government^ as administered by king, lords, 
and commons ; and they scorn the imputations which would 
represent every Reformer as a Jacobin, and every advocate 
for peace as an enemy to his king and country. They jiity 
those persons, whatever their i:)rinciples may be, Avho, in 
trying to defend them, have recourse to the mean acts of 
vilifying and abusing their opponents ; and they proclaim 
their own firm purj^ose to avoid descending to the littleness 
of personal controversy, or to recriminations unworthy alike 
of Britons, of Christians, or of men. It is their wish, on 
the contrary, to cherish, as fir as they are able, a good 
opinion of those who difler from them; to allow the weight 
of their arguments, where they really deserve consideration ; 
to place them in the most favorable view ; and to give their 
readers a fair opportunity of forming an impartial judgment 
by a comparison of the best remarks Avhich can be made on 
all sides. At the same time, they declare it is not their 
intention to enter themselves as parties on the political 



POSITION AS EDITOR. 63 

field. For though they shall think it then* duty to state 
the reasonings on both sides of public and interesting 
questions, they do not conceive it to be at all the proper 
business of the editor of a newsixiper to present his readers 
■\vith his own political opinions ; and whatever theirs may 
at any time be, it is too much their wish to live in peace 
and charity with all men, to feel disposed to come forward 
as angry zealots or violent jiartizans. Their utmost am- 
bition will be gratified if they shall be able to recommend 
this paper to tlie public notice as an authentic, impartial, 
and early record of the sentiments of other's on those great 
political topics which now agitate the world, and of those 
interesting events which almost every day now furnishes, 
and which but mark out the present era to the peculiar 
attention of the politician, the historian, and the philoso- 
pher." 

A manly, modest and prudent stand for the youthful 
editor, having wisely, imj^roved upon the more demonstra- 
tive attitude of liis predecessor. In some respects a 
remarkable stand, when we consider his friendship for the 
Gales, the fervor of his first i:)olitieal associations, and the 
natural tendency of the young to espouse all the issues of a 
party, right or wrong, in which friends have perilled their 
fortunes. Without changing his real position, he only tries 
to distinguish between the sour fermentation and the true 
leaven, assured that candor and discretion in the pursuit of 
truth afibrd the clearest light with which to discei'n it. 

The sudden change from a subordinate to a leader must 
have surprised the young man, and surprised as well as 
gratified his Fulneck friends. 

lie thus playfully speaks of himself and the new paper in 
a letter to a friend : " You Avcre no doubt astonished when 
you first saw my name annexed to the - Iris^ and perhaps 



64 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

still more, when you observed the humiliating distance 
between the cringing^ trembling, gouty pace of our 
party-colored messenger of the gods, and the noble, firm 
and manly gait of tlie late lamented liegister. I cannot 
exj)ect that the Iris will ever meet with, nor, in my 
opinion deserve, the liberal patronage which supported the 
late liegister. But as far as my humble abilities can 
entertain and instruct my fellow creatures, I am determined 
to exert them to the utmost of my power ; and as I cannot 
but expect ray eiforts will meet with at least as much 
encouragement as they merit, I shall judge of their deserts 
by that encouragement ; and if I fail to please, I will cheer- 
fully resign and melt into obscurity." . 



CHAPTER V. 



POLITICAL EXTANGLEMENTf? — CHARGE OF LIBEL AGAINST MONTGOM- 
EUV— HIS TKIAL — IMI'HISONMENT AT YOKK CASTLE — RELEASE 
FKOxM PRISON — SECOND IMPRISONMENT. 



Montgomery is re-homed, and his stay at Sheffield has 
every prospect of permanency and success. While he occu- 
pies the printing office, Mr. Gales's three sisters have come 
from Eckington and taken the bookstore : like a beloved 
brother he is received into their household, and the new 
establishment at the Hartshead is bustling with youthful 
enterprize. 

Our friend had trenched himself in a position not likely 
to prove dangerous, while it was one of sufficient responsi- 
bility and labor to call forth his best cffi^rts and incite to 
vigorous self-improvement. 

What little things may sometimes cloud our sky and 
bring us into unlooked for straits, he will himself tells us. 

" Little more than a month after I had become connected 
Avith the newspaper, I was one day called into the book- 
seller's shop, where business orders were received. There I 
found a poor-looking elderly man, whom I recollected to 
have seen in the street a little while before, when I was 
attracted both by his grotesque appearance, and his comical 
address, as a ballad-monger. He stood with a bundle of 
pamphlets in his hand, crying out in a peculiar tone, ' Here 
you have twelve songs for a penny.' Then he recapitulated 
6* 



66 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

at length the title of each, thus : ' The first song in the 
book is ' — so ami so ; ' the second song in the Look ' — so 
and so ; ' the third song ' — so and so ; and on he went ' so 
and so ' to the end of tlie catalogue. lie now offered me 
the specimen of an article in his line, and asked what he 
must pay for six quires of the same ? I immediately replied 
that I did not deal in such commodities, having better 
employment for my presses ; he must therefore apply else- 
where (I believe I named a place where he might be 
served). ' But,' he rejoined, like one who had some knoAV- 
ledge of the terms used by printers, ' you have this standing 
in your office.' ' That is more than I know,' was my answer. 
Taking up the printed leaf, I j^erceived that it contained 
two copies of verses, with each of which I had been long 
famiUar, but had never seen them coupled in that shape 
before ; at the top of the page was the imj^ression of a 
wood-cut [Liberty and the British Lion], which I recog- 
nized as having figured in the frontispiece of an extinct 
periodical, issued by my predecessor, and entitled the 
Patriot. The paper also, of which a large stock had 
devolved to me, was of a particular Idnd, being the material 
of certain forms for the registration of freeholds, under a 
still-born act of parliament, printed on one side only, and 
which had been sold for waste. On discovering this, I 
went up into the office, and asked when and for whom such 
things as I held in my hand had been printed, as I had no 
knowledge of the job ? ' Oh, Sir,' said the foreman, ' they 
were set uj) ever so long ago by Jack [Mr. Gales's appren- 
tice], for himself, and to give away to his companions ; 
and the matter is now standing in the types, just as it 
was when you bought the stock in the office.' ' Indeed !' 
I exclaimed ; ' but how came the ballad-seller, who Avas 
baAvling out his twelve songs for a penny the other day, to 



A CHARGE OF LIBEL. 67 

have a copy ? ' In explanation of this, he stated, that he 
had formerly knoAvn him, when he himself was an appren- 
tice in an office in Derby, from "which such wares were 
supplied to hawkers. Hearing his voice in the street, he 
had called him in for old-acquaintance sake, and, in the 
course of talking about trade, had shown him an impression 
of Jack's songs, by Avhich he thought his old acquaintance 
might make a few pence in his strange way. ' Well then,' 
said I, ' let the poor fellow have what he wants, if it will do 
him any good ; but what does he mean by six quires ? ' 
'Not quires of whole sheets, but six times twenty-four 
copies of tliis size,' was the information I received on this 
new branch of literature. I then Avent down stairs and told 
my customer that he might have the quantity he wanted 
for eighteen pence, which would barely be the expense of 
the paper and working oiF. He was content ; the order 
was executed, the parcel delivered by myself into his hand, 
and honestly paid for by him. I have often said, Avhen I 
have had occasion to tell this adventure of my romantic 
youth (for adventure it was, and no every-day one, as the 
issue proved), that if ever in my life I did an act which was 
neither good nor bad, or, if either, rather good than bad, it 
Avas this. 

" Two months afterwards, one of the toAvn constables 
waited upon me, and very civilly requested that I would 
call upon him at his residence in the adjacent street. Ac- 
cordingly I went thither, and asked for what he Avanted to 
see me. He then produced a magistrate's Avarrant, charg- 
ing me Avith having, on the 16th day of August preceding, 
printed and published a certain seditious libel respecting the 
Avar then raging between his Majesty and the French Gov- 
ernment, entitled ' A patriotic song, by a clei-g3nnan of 
Belfast.' I Avas quite puzzled to comjjrehend Avhat pro- 



68 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

duction from my press this charge alkicled to, not the 
remotest idea of the ballad-seller occm-riug to me at the 
moment." 

A copy of the song was then shown him, which he 
instantly recognized as the same, sold unwittingly from his 
office, certainly not with any intention of raising a poUtical 
breeze. 

It was in vain that Montgomery explained the circum- 
stances of the case, or tried to show that it could not be 
a libel upon the existing war, inasmuch as it was published 
long before hostilities between France and England began ; 
it having been composed for an anniversary celebration of 
the destruction of the Bastile, and referring solely to the 
invasion of France by the Austrian and Prussian armies 
under the Duke of Brunswick, in July, 1792. 

As the matter took a serious turn, a specimen of the 
song, with its libellous verse, may interest those cmious to 
inspect the "mingled yarn" in our web of life. 

- " While tyranny marshals its minions around, 
And bids its fierce legions advance, 
Fair Freedom ! the hopes of thy sons to confound, 
And restore his old empire in France, — 

What friend among men to the rights of mankind, 

But is fired with resentment to see 
The satraps of pride and oppression combined 

To prevent a great land being free ? 

Europe's fate on the contest's decision depends ; 

Most important its issue will be, 
For should France be subdued, Euro^^e's liberty ends, — 

If she triumphs, the world will be free." 

The last was the sinning stanza, bristlmg with treason 
against the nation. 



IIIS TKIAL. 69 

TJncxpecteclly Montgomery finds himself in the clutches 
of the law, and arraigned before the Sheffield Sessions, 
charged with printing and publishing a false and scanda- 
lous libel upon the present just and necessary war. Plead- 
ing "Xot Guilty" to the indictment, bail was given, and 
the case laid over to the Doncaster Sessions, a few months 
later. Meanwhile, through the columns of the Iris, he 
begged his friends to suspend their verdict, avowing his 
willingness to trust his cause to the justice and intelligence 
of a British jury. 

In January, 1795, the Doncaster Sessions came around. 
The case was argued with no inconsiderable ability and 
bitterness. The absurdity of seeking to ground a guilty 
intention upon an act so simple and natural was strongly 
set forth by the defendant's counsel. 

" Did his client foresee, or could any man in his senses 
ever dream of the mighty injury that was chai'ged in the 
indictment, as intended to have been done by the ijubli- 
cation of six quires of a song, printed long before the pres- 
ent war was ever thought of? My client was apjilied to 
by. this Jordan, to print six quires of these songs, which he 
agreed to prhit for eighteen pence ! Eighteen jjence ! six 
pennyworth of paper, six j^ennyworth of printing, and si:^ 
pennyworth of profit! Good God! Will any man be- 
lieve, in times like the present, when prosecutions are so 
frequent, and the punishment for libels so severe, that a 
man not out of his senses, would rvm his neck into such 
a noose for sixpence ! — would hazard his liberty by pub- 
lishing anything that he conceived might be tortured into 
sedition for such a pitiful reward ! Surely no ! Where 
then is the intention specified in the indictment ? " 

But in vain. 

The jurors found, that " James Montgomery, printer, 



70 LIFE OF MONTQOMEKY. 

being a Avicked, malicious, seditious, and evil disposed per- 
son, and well knowing the premises, but wickedly, mali- 
ciously, and seditiously contriving, devising, and intending 
to stir up and excite discontent and sedition among his 
Majesty's subjects, and to alienate and withdraw the affec- 
tion, fidelity, and allegiance of his said Majesty's subjects 
from his said Majesty ; and unlawfully and wickedly to 
seduce and encourage his said Majesty's subjects to resist 
and oppose his said Majesty's government, and the said 
war," t%c., brought in their verdict "Guilty." Sentence 
was immediately passed, — three months' imprisonment in 
the Castle of York, and the payment of a fine of twenty 
pounds. 

The next day he was taken to York, Avith a modified 
estimate of the jury box, we may venture to say. His 
feelings upon the trying occasion are thus disclosed in the 
Iris : 

" My trial is now past. The issue is known. To a ver- 
dict of a jury of my countrymen it is my duty to bow 
with the deepest reverence; to the sentence of the law 
it is equally my duty to submit with silent resignation. 
It will be time enough to murmur and repine, when I am 
(jonscious of having merited punishment for real transgres- 
sions. The verdict of a jury may pronounce an innocent 
person 'GuUty ;' but it will be remembered that a verdict 
cannot make him ' Guilty.' .... 

" To a generous and sympathising px^blic, which has been 
so exceedingly interested in my behalf, I owe a debt of 
gratitude which the future services of my whole life can 
never repay. I pledge myself never to relinquish the 
cause of liberty, justice, and humanity, whilst I possess 
any powers of mind or body that can be advantageous to 
my country. 



COl^SOLATIONS IN CONFIIS" EMENT . 71 

" I should, however, be unworthy of the name of a man, 
if I did not, on the present occasion, feel the weiglit of the 
blow levelled against me ; but I should be still more un- 
worthy of that character, were I to sink under it. I do 
feel, but I will not sink. Though all the world should for- 
sake me, this consolation can never fail me, that the great 
Searcher of Hearts, whose eye watches over every atom of 
the'universe, knows every secret intention of my soul : and 
when at the bar of eternal justice this cause shall again be 
tried, I do indulge the humble hope that his approving 
voice shall confirm the verdict Avhich I feel his finger has 
Avritten upon my conscience. 

"This hope shall bear me througli my present misfor- 
tune; this hope shall illuminate the Avails of my prison; 
shall cheer my silent solitude, and wing the melancholy 
hours with comfort. Meanwhile, the few months of my 
captivity shall not be unprofitably spent. The Jris shall 
be conducted upon the same firm, independent, and imjjar- 
tial principles, which have secured to the editor so great a 
share of public patronage. Not long shall I be separated 
from my friends; their remembrance woxild shorten a much 
longer confinement. Soon shall I return to the bosom of 
society, and oh, may I never deserve worse, but infinitely 
better, of my country, than I have hitherto done." 

The trial excited more than ordinary interest ; the tem- 
perate joolicy of the Jris and the personal woi'th of the 
editor were a j^riori evidence of his innocence, oifsetthig 
the natural rashness of youth (for he had but just turned 
twenty-three), if rashness had formed any part of the trans- 
action. 

His business, newly, and of course not yet firmly, estab- 
lished, had need of his presence, so that his term at York 
was likely to be a serious di'awback, if not altogether 
ruinous to its interests. 



72 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

The effect of confinement upon a constitution naturally 
delicate occasioned grave apijrehensions, and when to past 
vicissitudes and thickening anxieties was added the charge 
of crime, no wonder if his courage faltered, and he became 
at times the prey of deep depression. The sympathy of the 
public and the kind offices of friendship brought their heal- 
ing; conscious integrity buoyed up the prisoner with its 
strong supports, while his pen and books winged the lan- 
guid hours of confinement, and made them a profitable 
period of mental culture. 

" God, Truth, and Conscience, are for you, who then can 
be against you ? " closed an address to him from a debating 
society of which he was a member ; " your sentence is a 
eulogy, your prison is a palace." 

Of his prison employments he does not distinctly tell us ; 
how little springs of enjoyment misealed themselves all 
along by the way, he pleasantly records. 

" The room which I occupied overlooked the Castle walls 
and gave me ample views of the adjacent country, then 
passing from the forlornness of winter to the first blooms of 
a promising spring. From my window I was daily in the 
habit of marking these, and dwelt with peculiar delight on 
the well-known walk by the river Ouse, where stood a long 
range of well-grown trees, beyond which, on the left, lay 
pasture fields that led towards a Avooden windmill, the 
motion and configuration of whose arms, as the body was 
turned about, east, west, north and south, to meet the wind 
from every point, proved the source of very humble, but 
very dear pleasure to one Avith whom it Avas ever as a 
living thing, — the companion of his eye and the inspirer 
of his thoughts, having more than once suggested grave 
meditations on the vanity of the world, and the flight of 
time. 



RELEASE FROM ru ISO N. 73 

"During such reveries, I oftencd purposed that my first 
ramble, on recovery of my freedom, should he down by 
that river, under those trees, across the fields beyond, and 
away to the windmill. And so it came to pass. One fine 
morning, in the middle of April, I was liberated. Imme- 
diately afterwards I sallied forth, and took my walk in that 
direction, — from ■whence, Avith feelings which none but an 
emancipated captive can fully understand, I looked back 
upon the castle walls, and to the window of that very 
chamber from which I had been accustomed to look for- 
ward, both with the eye and with hope, upon the ground 
Avhich I was now treading, with a spring in my step as 
tliougli the very soil were elastic under my feet. While I 
was thus traversing the fields, not with any apprehension 
of falling over the verge of the narrow footpath, l)ut from 
mere wantonness of instinct, in the joy of liberty long 
wished for, and, though late, come at last, I VHlIfulli/ 
diverged from the track, crossing it now to the right, then 
to the left, like a butterfly fluttering here and there, making 
a long course and little Avay, just to prove my legs, that 
they were no longer under restraint, but might tread xohere 
and hoio they pleased ; and that I myself Avas in reality 
abroad again in the Avorld, — not gazing at a section of 
landscape over stone walls that miglit not be scaled ; nor, 
when, in tlie castle yard, the ponderous gates, or the small 
wicket, happened to be opened to let in or let out visitors 
or captives, looking up the street from a particular point 
which might not be passed. Now to some wise ijeojjle 
this may appear very childish, even in such a stripling as 
I was then : but the feeling was pure and natural, and the 
expression innocent and graceful as every unsophisticated 
emotion and its spontaneous manifestation must be." 

On the IGth of April, the captive is free, "twenty pounds 



74 LliE OF MONTGOMEIIY. 

out of pocket, besides all the vexation and misery -whicli lie 
had suffered." The cost of the trial was ninety pounds, 
sixty of which were liquidated by his friends. No blush of 
shame is on his cheek, no stain upon his name. He has 
only touched the cuj) which some of England's choicest 
sons have drank to the very dregs. 

The following week the released editor greets us through 
the columns of the Iris, and his cheerful tone falls pleasantly 
on the ear. There is nothing of the whimpering politician, 
or a disposition to make capital from his misfortunes; nor 
is he provoked to abandon his tem]^erate policy by any 
indignant sense of wrong and injustice done hiin. 

"The generous sympathy of many, veiy many friends, 
the prevailing sentiment of the public concerning my con- 
duct, and my misfortune, and the conscious approbation of 
my own heart rendered my confinement less irksome, and 
far more agreeable than I could have expected. As I feel 
no reason to blush for its cause, I shall never regret my 
imprisonment. I have no wish to complam of any tem- 
porary inconveniences or mortifications to which 'my late 
prosecution has exposed me: for even my enemies have 
triumphed less over my fall than I could have hoped from 
their former disposition towards me, while the generous 
indulgence and esteem, liowever little merited, of the 
humane and the virtuous, have most abundantly compen- 
sated for all my sufferings. One solicitude only remains, 
and Avhile gratitude glows in my heart the solicitude will 
forever remain, that I may not prove myself unworthy of 
that share of public and private kindness which I have 
experienced in my prison, and which has met me on my 
return, 

" My judgment may possibly mislead me, but, Avhile I 
have no other aim in the exercise of it than to arrive at 



NEW ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. 75 

truth., I "will not fear any consequences which may follow 
from pursuing the best dictates of my heart. I am not 
conscious of being influenced by any of those violent princi- 
ples which have been imputed to me : on the other hand, 
I detest the spirit of j^arty wherever it appears. And, 
whilst I hope I can make reasonable allowances for the 
prejudices of others, I am determined never to sacrifice to 
those prejudices, on any side of any question, the indepen- 
dence of my own mind. Whatever some jiersons may say 
or think of me, no man is a firmer friend either to his king 
or his country than myself But I look upon loyalty and 
patriotism to be best evinced by supporting such measures, 
and such only, as have a tendency to rectify abuses, and to 
establish the true honor and happiness of Britain on the 
solid basis of Justice, Peace, and Likeuty." 

Moderation and manliness, however, did not save him 
from further annoyances. And nothing discloses more 
vividly the fermentation of public feeling, and the liability 
of a government to become the victim of its own suspicions 
and jealousy, than many of the prosecutions which took 
place at this time. 

An act passed Parliament in 1*795, for " the safety and 
preservation of his Majesty's person and government 
against treasonable and seditious practices and attempts," 
Avhich added fuel to jDolitical heats, and opened the way for 
fresh outrages upon the i)eople. 

"While this act, Avith one for " preventing seditious meet- 
ings," was passing through the House, the Iris spoke of 
them with regret, and what was more significant, 2)rinted 
them surrounded by a mourning border. 

During the -winter of '95, the severity of the Aveather, the 
scarcity and dearness of food, together with the check to 
business imposed by the war, aggraAated the national and 



76 LIFE OF MONTGOMEUr. 

social disquiet, and added deeper sliades to the general 
gloom. It was indeed one of those straitened periods of 
national life, wliich legislation cannot lielp. Constrained 
into a necessary but nnjmpular line of policy, beholding real 
evils that time alone can right, serious attempts to cliastise 
the impatient and querulous tempers naturally begot by 
them, too often tln-o\v a government on the side of needless 
severities and unjust retaliations, and divorce it from the 
confidence and good will of its subjects. 

A public disturbance took place in Sheffield, between tlie 
military and the people, in the account of ^\•hich the Iris 
was accused of using unseemly language, and its editor is 
again in the clutches of the law. 

" In the warrant to apprehend me," he Avrites to a friend, 
"I was charged with having printed and pubhslicd 'a gross 
misrepresentation of all that happened ' on tliat fatal even- 
ing ; and furtlier, that my account Avas ' Ukdy to stir up 
connnotions among tlie pcoi)Ie and disturb the peace of the 
town.' This charge, as ridiculous as false, lias been en- 
tirely dropped, and the wliole has been cut down into a 
miserable charge of a libel on the character of our redoubt- 
able military magistrate, — without one syllable about 
sedition in the whole indictment. 

" It was both prudent and politic in my adversaries to 
drop the most serious i:)art of this accusation ; for a friend 
of mine had been arrested and bound over to Barnslcy 
Sessions for affirming in the public streets, and in the 
presence of the justices themselves, that the men shot Avere 
m,urdered : — they did not think proper even to prefer a hill 
against him ! Is there one Avord in my Avhole jmragraph 
Avhich conA'eys so severe a censure on the hero of that 
evening ? Xo ; but my friend is a v^ender of stockings, 
and I a vender of ncAvspaj^ers : the pi'osecution is le\elled 
against the Iris — thev arc determined to crusli it." 



IX rUl SOX AGAIN. ■ 77 

Witli any such antecedent, no difficulty would be found 
in convicting him, and James Montgomery is again sen- 
tenced to six months in the Castle of York ; to pay a fine 
of thirty i^ounds to the king ; and to give security for his 
good behaviour for two years, — himself in a bond of two 
hundred pounds, and two sureties in fifty pounds each. 

In consideration of the delicate state of his health, the 
judges recommend leniency of treatment and every indul- 
gence that can alleviate the necessary evils of his imprison- 
ment. But to York he again goes a^_jr«so«er, — a unique 
mode of requiting good citizens, extremely awkward to 
respectability and virtue. 

His paper, of which he was then sole editor (Mr. Naylor 
having withdrawn from the concern a few months before), 
was left in the hands of J. Pye Smith, who generously 
undertook its management during his absence. 

" Be firm, cool, and moderate," counsels the imprisoned 
editor to his friend ; " you can never sink into dullness, if I 
estimate your talents aright, but beware of being hurried 
away by generous indignation, inqyrudent zeal for truths or 
tlie dread of censure from any party.'''' 

To a friend he writes : — 

" Ere now you have read my trial, and know my fiite. 
Will you (though our personal knowledge of each otlier 
is small) believe me capable of publishing a willful and ma- 
licious falsehood, which, immediately on its appearance, 
would subject me to all the vengeance of the law ; and 
then, to support it and screen myself from justice, can you 
believe that I could corrupt and suborn persons of fair and 
honest character to come forward as perjured witnesses in 
my behalf? Unless you imagine this, I know, I feel your 
opinion. 

" My present situation here may be described in a few 
7* 



78 LIFE OF MONTGOMEllY. 

words : the times are so flourishing now, as compared with 
this time last year, that, instead of about sixty debtors 
confined in the Castle, the place overflows with double 
that number ; and other prisoners are in projDortion. I 
cannot, on any terms, procure a room for myself; but I 
have the certain reversion of the first that becomes vacant. 
I am therefore imder the mortifying necessity of taking up 
my quarters among persons of far dift'erent appearance 
from those with Avhom I have been accustomed to asso- 
ciate ; but I must give the poor men their due, — com- 
panions in misfortune, they really pay me the greatest 
respect, and show me every attention, and do for me 
every service in their power. You will think my lot a 
hard one ; but is there no consolation at hand ? Are not 
these gloomy walls an asylum from the fury of persecu- 
tions ? At home, and when I am 'at liberty, it is evident 
I am never safe: here I ^\moell secured ! why then com- 
plain ? My dear friend, the worst is over. The torture 
of the trial, the journey hither, the horror on entering 
this den of des})air, but, above all, the lingering agony 
of suspense which has preyed upon my heart, and drained 
my spirits dry, is past. The succeeding six months of my 
dreary confinement here cannot be more melancholy than 
the f)ast six : to kyioio the worst is far less terrible than to 
dread the worst. My paper Avarns me to droj) my pen. 
Pray write with your usual freedom — my letters are not 

inspected. 

" Your sincere friend, 

"J. MONTGOMEKY. 

" Joseph Aston, Manchester." 



CHAPTER VI. 

PRISON LIFE — LETTER TO JOSEPH ASTON — "PRISON AMUSEMENTS." 
RELINQUISHES POLITICS — POLITICAL FACTIONS — VISIT TO YORK 
CASTLE — LETTERS TO MR. ASTON — ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION — 
RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS. 

A PEEP within prison doors does not necessarily disclose 
haggard faces and remorseful consciences. Montgomery 
unlocks York Castle, and gives us a glance at his respec- 
table compeers : 

"In this building there are four well-behaved j^ersons, 
who have lived in the most respectable circles, and seen 
better days ; and also eight of the peoj^le called Quakers, 
who are confined for refusing to pay tithes, though they 
never did nor ever would have resisted the seizure of 
their projDcrty to any amount the rapacious priest required. 
There are three venerable greyheaded men among them, 
and the others are very decent and sensible. One of the 
old Quakers is my principal and my best companion ; a 
very gay, shrewd, cheerful man, with a heart as honest and 
as tender as his face is clear and smiling. My time, on the 
whole, passes away in a smooth and easy manner. I em- 
ploy myself in reading, writing, walking, &c., and never, on 
the whole, enjoyed better sjiirits in my life. My friends at 
Sheffield are become almost enthusiastic in my favor ; their 
number is greatly increased ; my enemies are silent, and 
many of the most bitter have relented : I do not believe 
there are ten persons who will venture to say I have not 



80 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

been most cruelly and unjustly abused. My business, 
Avhicli I confess was and is my greatest cause of concern 
and anxiety, on account of its intricacy, and the care re- 
quired in its management, lias hitherto gone on with 
almost unprecedented smoothness and success. My health, 
as I think I informed you before, has been very indiftereut. 
. . . AYhat I am yet doomed to suffer from it, God only 
knows ! " 

James Montgomery to 3Tr. J. P. SmitJi. 

"York Castle, May 1, 1796 
"My dear Fkiexd, 

" My captivity now begins to decline down the hill, and 
I shall only have nine weeks to stay here on Tuesday next ; 
but I fear I shall not return immediately to Sheffield : the 
doctors here say it Avill be absolutely necessary for me to 
go then to Scarborough, for the benefit of sea-bathing and 
drinking, at least a fortnight. Of this I apprise you thus 
early, that if I should be obliged to go there, you may be 
2)rcpared to indulge me with your kind and valuable ser- 
vices a few weeks longer than we expected, . . . The 
management and arrangement of the Iris lias continued 
to afford me much satislaction. I shall tremble when I 
resume it with my own hands, lest its credit should fall 
with the resignation of its present editor. But tell that 
editor from me not to hack and hew Pitt quite so much 
in the London news, and to be particularly careful in the 
Sheffield news, not to insert any home occurrence without 
the most indubitable authority." 

" My time of confinement draws to a close," he writes 
again, " but my sentence is a Cerberus A\itli three heaths — 
fine, imprisonment, and bail. Thus even when I leave tliis 
dreadful place, after six months' confincimient, and paying 



LETTER TO JOSETIl ASTON. 81 

thirty pounds, I am still to be indebted to two friends for 
the miserable privilege of being a prisoner at large two 
years longer ! I cannot think Avith patience on the sub- 
ject ; but I must submit ; and it is as well to do so with 
a good grace as with a bad one. I hope to be released on 
the 5th of July ; and in a fortnight afterwards shall prob- 
ably be once more in Sheffield. I wonder what evil star 
led me thither at first ! I propose to spend a fortnight at 
Scarboro'. Farewell; and may you enjoy health, peace, 
and every temporal prosperity in the bosom of your family 
and among your friends, without ever being torn from 
them as I have been ! " 

The 5th of July set him free, and he thus descants of 
the sweets of freedom : 

James Montgomery to Joseph Aston. 

" Scarboro', July 10, 1796. 
"My dear Fkiexd, 

" On Tuesday last I was duly liberated from my long and 
cruel captivity, and the same evening arrived at this de- 
lightful place. A greater contrast can scarcely be ifnag- 
ined than the narrow circumference of a prison and the 
boundless immensity of the ocean. I am charmed with 
the romantic beauties of this place, and my only employ- 
ment here is to admire them — and to Avish to leave them 
all, to return home as speedily as possible ; thus in no situ- 
ation of life have I ever met with unmixed ha2:)pinoss! 
But shadow relieves the glare of light ; the bitter corrects 
the sweet ; and solicitude softens the tone of bliss, which 
might otherwise transport a simple lad like me beyond the 
narrow limits of his reason. Part — I may say the great- 
est part — of the pleasure which I experienced on the day 
of my enlargement, arose from the solacmg idea that you 



82 LIFE OF- MONTGOMERY. 

and many other dear and absent friends were then — per- 
haps at the very moment of my release — congratulatmg 
me in spirit, and welcoming the captive on his resurrection 
from the tomb of despondency. If you enjoyed my feel- 
ings by sympathy, I also particijjate of your sensations by 
the same pleasing emotion of the soul. 

" To me the magnificence of the ocean and the awful 
<rrandeur of these winding and mountainous shores are 
almost entirely new spectacles ; for though I was born in a 
sea-port, I have never had the opportunity of contempla- 
ting such sublime objects since I first came to England, at 
the age of five years. Though I am very weak, and easily 
overset, I for that very reason, as much as for curiosity, 
fatigue myself with rambling from morning till night. I 
have more than once endangered my neck, by climbing 
the precipices overshadowing the shoi-e ; and it is not im- 
probable that I may yet make a fraction of my head or 
reduce my bones to decimals in some of my wanderings. 

" I hope to put the last touch to my novel here — per- 
haps by conveying it to the fire ; if it should escape mai*- 
tyrdora, — and really it is not worthy of that honor — I 
may perhaps find some opportmiity of conveying it to you 
before I venture to print it for the benefit of trunkmakers 
and pastry cooks ! I have some thought of publishing, as 
an experiment, a collection of bagatelles produced in York 
Castle, under the title of Prison Amusements^ by P. P. 
What think you ? The readers of the Iris liave not been 
disappointed in them. Will that million-headed Hydra, the 
public, accept the sop and not worry the poor author into 
the bargain ? " 

Of the literary achievements alluded to in this letter, the 
novel, one of his London stories revised, never came to 
light. Prison jhnusements made their ai)pearance, in- 



"rUISON AMUSEMENTS." 83 

troducing lis to the Piccioli whicli beguiled the tediousness 
of his captivity. And if they have not the moral signifi- 
cance of Banyan's Spider in Bedford Jail, or the delicious 
richness of the "herb of grace" in the walls of Fones- 
trella, they show that the grim enclosures of York Castle 
were not altogether barren of wayside interests. 

What says the prisoner ? Besides the "Wag-tail and the 
Ked-breast, 

" Lo ! my frisking dog attends, 
The kindest of four-footed friends ; 
Brim-full of giddiness and mirth, 
He is the prettiest fool on earth. 
The rogue is twice a squirrel's size, 
Witli short snub nose and big black eyes ; 
A cloud of brown adorns his tail, 
That curls and serves him for a sail, 
The same deep auburn dyes his ears, 
That never were abridged by shears ; 
"V^Tiile white around, like Lapland snows, 
His hair in soft profusion flows. 
A thousand antic tricks he plays, 
And looks at once a thousand ways 5 
His wit, if he has any, lies 
Somewhere between his tail and eyes; 
Sooner the light those eyes will fail, 
Than Billy cease to wag his tail. 

A melancholy stag appears, 

With woful look and flagging ears ; 

A feeble, lean, consumptive elf. 

The very picture of myself! 

Blasted like me, by fortune's frown ; 

Like me, hoice hunted, twice run down, 

Still on his painful limbs are seen 

The scars where worrying dogs have beer. ; 



84 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Still on his woe-imprinted face, 
I ■weep, a broken heart to trace. 
What rocks and tempests yet await 
Both him and me, we leave to fate ; 
AVe know, by past experience taught. 
That innocence availcth nought : 
I feel, and 't is my proudest boast, 
That conscience is itself a host ; 

"While this inspires my swelling breast, 
Let all forsake me — I 'm at rest : 
Ten thousand deaths in every nerve, 
I 'd rather suffer than deserve." 

Ills feelings, on resuming the editorial chair, are thus 
portrayed in a letter to Mr. Aston : 

" Sheffield, Aug. G, 179G. 
" ]My dear FpaEND, 

" The post that brings you this hasty effusion, will also 
convey to you a welcome paper message from an old friend 
of yours and mine, whom vindictive persecution drove 
from his native country to seek an asylum in a land where 
some traces of liberty may yet be found. How often 
have I repented my madness in not following his fortunes, 
though warmly invited ! But, in truth, I am not partial 
to America, and I believe I shall never emigrate thither 
till banished by imperious necessity ; and God grant that 
moment may never arrive. I love England, with all its 
disadvantages, its cares, vexations, horrors, — perliaps my 
misfortunes themselves have only endeared me the more 
to my native island. 

"I am once more, as you will have seen by the last Iris., 
returned to this town. I confess frankly to you, that I feel 
a degree of dread and anxiety, which weighs down my 
spirits exceedmgly, on my re-embarking in business, and 



RELINQUISHES POLITICS. 85 

again becoming the butt of malice and the mark of envy. 
A i^ublic character is always on the pillory, exposed to the 
jeers and taixnts, the rotten eggs and brickbats of the mob 
of mankind, who are never so hapj^y as when they are 
making those whom they feel to be above them miserable. 
I love fame ; but I cannot afford to pay the price at which 
it must be purchased. This luxury^ like all the necessaries 
of life, is now so much advanced in price, that gold alone 
— not virtue, wit, or genius — can procure it. I ha^•o 
now determined to hazard the publication of my Prison 
Amuseiuoits, and may probably add some other trifles." 

"I am divorced from politics," he says again, "as I think 
you yourself may perceive by the complexion of my news- 
paper for these several months past. I will never sacrifice 
my independence, nor will I join the hue and ciy of any 
party. My principles arc precisely the same as they al- 
ways have been smce I could distinguish good and evil ; 
but I trust I understand thera better, and shall be enabled 
in future to practice them with equal openness, but with 
more circumspection than formerly," 

His object more than ever is to quit politics, whose party 
strifes and acrimonious spirit gave him, at times, exquisite 
pain. 

To maintain, however, the neutrality of his paper, often 
called for fighting no less vigorous than that waged be- 
tween the factions themselves. The plaint of Watts he 
could, in truth, adopt — 

" Peace is the blessing that I seek 
How lovely are its charms ! 
I am for peace ; but -when I speak, 
They all declare for arms. 
8 



86 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

New passions still tlieir souls engage, 

And keep their malice strong : 
AVhat shall be done to curb thy rage, 

O thou devouring tongue ! " 

A more congenial toj^ic liappily courted the fiivor of the 
Iris, wliich, for a while, divided Avith politics the public 
mind of Sheffield. 

This was the endowment and opening of a Goieral In- 
firmary around whose corner-stone all parties grounded 
their arms, and yielded to the beneficent influences of the 
occasion. 

The theatre gave it a benefit ; an epilogue, written by 
Montgomery, made earnest plea in behalf of the 

" friendly dome, 

For want a refuge, for disease a home, 
Bidding the springs of consolation flow 
Through every channel of dilTusivc woe." 

The interest of the young editor in the new institution 
introduced him to the friendship of one of the city fathers, 
whose friendship it was a privilege and an advantage to 
enjoy. 

Again rings the tocsin of j^arties ; and thus writes 
Montgomery to his Manchester friend, Mr. Aston : — 

" Sheffield, March G, 1708. 
" Dear Feiend, 

"... I have been nearly crazed during the last 

fortnight with the din of jarring politicians. The mania of 

Voluntary Contributions towards the promotion of this 

detestable war, has seized upon the inhabitants of Sheffield, 

as well as in other loyal towns. There are, howevei-, some 

persons of the greatest wealth and consequence here, who 

warmly oppose the measure. A kind of paper warfare has 



CONTENDING POLITICAL FACTIONS. 87 

been carried on between the two parties ; I liavc been 
emi:)loyed by the champions on both sides of the question, 
and have not objected to print rules, advertisements, &c,, 
for either the one or the other. But determined, at all 
events, to j^reserve the independence of the Iris^ I have 
peremptorily rejected overtures from both sides to insert 
essays and paragraplis either for or against the measure. 
This has exposed me to a great deal of censure and illiber- 
ality from the violent of both parties ; I have been alter- 
nately coaxed and threatened by each, but have hitherto 
inflexibly resisted their importunities and despised their 
menaces. Circumstances of this kind, however tranquil or 
moderate I may aj^pear in public, wound me in private to 
the quick. I am too humble to despise the good opinion 
of the most insignificant of human beings, but I am too 
proud to purchase patronage from the most exalted by 
meanness and servility. On calmly reviewing my conduct, 
I am perfectly satisfied with it on this occasion ; but the 
exertion of such a haughty spirit of indej^endence has cost 
me inconceivable agony of mind. "When this ferment has 
subsided, I believe I shall not have lost one Avell-wisher 
whose friendship was worth preserving." 

He would willingly have been silent on the subject, 
but neutrality seemed at last out of the question. A 
gentleman of influence sent in a paragraj)h avouching the 
" general and very spirited sujiport " given to the Volun- 
tary Subscription, " equalled to the warmest wishes of its 
advocates," which he wished Montgomery to publish as his 
own. The following week, another, on directly opposite 
ground, was handed in with a similar request, both of 
which Avere inserted in the Iris with a fearless disclaimer on 
the part of the editor, that neither contained an expression 
of his own views, and that he would not give his adhesion 



88 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

to either side; the most difficult stand of all others to main- 
tain, as he who has struggled against being appropriated by 
two contending factions, well knows. 

" In Avhatever light the conduct of the editor of the Iris 
may be vicAved by others," says the young man in his little 
sheet, " he is determined to regulate it entirely by the dic- 
tates of his own conscience. Then, if, while sailing between 
the Aviad of one party and the waves of another, the little 
vessel in which he and his fortunes are embarked should be 
wrecked \\]}on Scylla, or engulfed in Charybdis, he may 
smile at destruction, and exclaim, with triumphant tranquil- 
ity, ' -T icas not horn, I Jiave not lived, I shall not die, a 
Demagogue or a Parasite I ' " 

The determined j^osition of Montgomery not to adopt 
and advocate the special policies of a party, unless he sin- 
cerely believed in them himself, did at this time cost him a 
friend. The gentleman already alluded to could not move 
the staunch little poet : patronage had a price, but he could 
not be bought with it ; and he unhesitatingly gave up its 
friendly aids, rather than sacrifice his principles and his 
independence. 

Tracing his steps by the light which he gives us, we find 
him a year after his liberation revisiting the scenes of his 
captivity. 

" Being summoned to attend a meeting of jirinters at 
Tadcaster, I could not resist the temptation of proceeding 
from thence to York, to revisit the place of my captivity ; 
to hail the venerable walls of my bastile ; and once more 
enjoy ' the pleasures of imprisonment.' There is a tender, 
melancholy pleasure in reviewing i:)ast misfortunes, and 
tracing the scenes where we have formerly sufiered. I feel 
an affection for every spot of ground where I have been 
unhappy ; an attachment even to the dungeon which I 



VISIT TO YORK CASTLE. 89 

entered with horror, and quitted with transport : but dear 
to my A'ery soul is the snug little apartment which I occu- 
pied during the last five months of my captivity ; — the cage 
in which I sang of sorrow, till sorrow became familiar and 
deliglitful ! O, my dear friend, when distracted witli tlie 
cares of business, and wounded with the disappointments 
of life, I look back with tender recollection on my prison 
hours; and had you not laugJiecl n\Q out o^ crying, in your 
critique on my novel, I could weep that they Avere past. I 
coukl fill a sheet with my observations and reflections, as I 
rambled round the Castle-yard, and recognized the jjleasing 
animals, my former fellow-pi'isoners, who grazed on the 
green, and which I used to feed with my hands. The buck 
— the poor, battered, miserable buck^ — is grown plump, 
and strong, and beautiful ; and, I am informed, is a very 
good husband to Xanny the doe, one of my most favorite 
companions ; — she will soon become a mother. The little 
dog, who forsook liis friends and family in the city to come 
and live with me, happened to be in the yard with his mas- 
ter when I entered ; he recognized me in a moment, sprung 
into my arms, and almost devoured me with joy ! " 

" Scarcely a day passes," he afterwards writes to Henry 
Wormall, one of his Quaker prison friends, " but you 
occupy some place in my thoughts. As often as I remem- 
ber York Castle, I always call to mind the many pleasing, 
peaceful hours we spent together there. How happy 
should I be to know that you were now, like myself, recall- 
ing the scenes of that dreadful place, like a dream that is 
past ! But to the will of the Supreme Disposer of all events 
we must patiently and humbly submit. He who is Omni- 
present, is felt in the dungeon as much [as surely] as in 
heaven itself; and He, who can do all things, can make a 
prison a paradise. Such I doubt not you have often found 
8* 



90 LIFE Oi^ MONTGUMLKY. 

it ; such I hope you find it every day ; and such I most 
earnestly pray you may always find it, "wbile your lot is cast 
■within those gloomy walls." 

The long letter closes with, " give poor Nanny, and Billy, 
and Ralph, each a crust of bread m my name, and tell the 
gulls I have not forgotten them." 

Again he says a few months later : — " Whenever I am 
uneasy and afflicted at home, which is very often the case — 
for you know yourself that I am too apt to be gloomy and 
discontented — when I am thus, I immediately look back at 
York Castle, and picture to myself those moments in it 
when I was the most miserable. AVhen, on the contrary, I 
am cheerful and contented in mind, I fly back with pleasure 
to my little room in your building. I fancy I see you seat- 
ed beside me, smoking your pipe and winding your cotton, 
with Y>oor Billy lying at our feet ; and though we are many 
miles asunder at present, and perhaps may never, never 
meet again, I sometimes imagine our old conversations 
restored, and think we are unfolding our hearts to each 
other. The remembrance of these things will be one of the 
principal pleasures of my future life, whether it be marked 
as hitherto, with trials and persecutions, or whether better, 
more delightful days await me. Absence, instead of weak- 
ening the respect and attachment which I conceived for 
you in prison, has strengthened, and, in proportion as the 
time becomes distant will, I hope, strengthen it more and 
nTore. 

" I have observed, with much concern, the slow progress 
of the Bill now before the House of Commons, in your 
favor: it is adjourned, and adjourned again, so often, and 
under such trifling pretences, that I do really fear it will 
never even reach the House of Lords. I believe you are 
prepared for the worst, Henry, and that you are as much 



LETTERS TO MR. ASTON. 91 

resigned as a man and a Cliristian ouglit to be under such 
severe and undeserved calamity. I wish for your deUver- 
ance ; but if that wish must not be gratified, I wish you 
may always be enabled, even in the agonizing hours of sick- 
ness, and perhaps of death, to bear your sufferings — or 
rather to triumph over them — with as much fortitude as 
you have hitherto done. I hope your wortliy friends and 
brethren in misfortune support their spirits and submit to 
their cruel and infamous fate with their wonted cheerful- 
ness. Remember me most kindly to them all, and assure 
them of my Avarm and undiminished friendship." 

" I am anxious to hear your opinion concerning the late 
events in France," he writes to Aston. " I know not pre- 
cisely whether my reflections in the Iris on that subject 
have been just : I wrote them, I can honestly say, Avith at 
least as much sincerity as wai-mth ; — but the aristocrats 
extol them to the skies ; they are praised by all the pow- 
dered pates in Sheffield ; and the Iris is now called an 
excellent, an admirable, a constitutional paper ! Praise 
from such a quai'ter almost inclines me to suspect that I 
have gone too fir ; but my conscience sanctions every syl- 
lable which my heart dictated on the occasion. I hate and 
abhor tyranny under every form, and in eveiy ^hape ; but 
in none so much as under a republican disguise : the mon- 
ster then becomes a hydra with a million heads." In a long 
letter of a later date, he says to the same correspondent : 
— " You do not know the thousandth part of me. I am 
dull, melancholy, and phlegmatic by nature ; and am grown 
indolent and ill-humored by habit. Disappointments at 
which you would laugh, in the eai-ly period of my life have 
sickened all my hopes, and clouded all my prospects ; my 
mhid is grown quite hypochondi-iacal ; and sunk in listless- 
ness, or only roused occasionally by the hori-oi's of religious 



92 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

feelings, I languish away life without comfort to myself, or 
benefit to others," 

Reviewing this period of his checlvered life, and the disap- 
pointments, which were but blessings in disguise, he writes ; 
" In the retirement of Fulneck, I was as ignorant of the world 
and its every day concerns, as the gold-fishes swimming 
about in the glass globe before lis are of what we are doing 
around them, and Avhen I took the rash step of running 
into the voitex, I was nearly as little prepared for the> 
business of general life as they Avould be to take part in our 
proceedings. 

" The experience of something more than two years bad 
awakened me to the unpoetical realities around me, and I 
was left to struggle alone amid the crowd, without any of 
those inspiring motives left to cheer me, under the delusive 
influence of which I had flung myself amidst scenes and 
into society for which I was Avholly unfit by feeling, taste, 
habit, or bodily constitution. Thus I came to Sheflield, 
with all my hopes blighted like the leaves and blossoms of 
a premature spring. There was yet life, but it was a per- 
verse, unnatural life ; and the renown which I found to be un- 
attainable, at that time, by legitimate poetry, I resolved to 
secure by »uch means as made many of my contcmi)oraries 
notoi-ious. I wrote verses in the doggerel strain of Peter 
Pindar, and prose sometimes in imitation of Fielding and 
Smollett, and occasionally in the strange style of the Ger- 
man plays and romances then in vogue. Eflbrt after eftbrt 
failed. A Providence of disappointment shut every door 
in my face, by which I tried to force my Avay to a dis- 
honorable fame. I was thus ha})pily saved from appearing 
tlie author of works which, at this hour, I should have 
been ashamed to acknowledge. Disheartened at length 
with ill success, I gave myself up to indolence and apathy, 



ANXIETY AND DEPKESSION. 93 

and lost some years of that part of my youth wliich ought 
to have been most active and profitable, using little exertion 
in my ofiice afiairs save what was necessary to keej) up my 
credit under heavy pecuniary obligations, and gradually, 
though slowly, to liquidate them." 

To his Manchester correspondent he more fully discloses 
the secret unrest of his inner life. 

" Since I wrote you last, I have suffered much anxiety 
and enjoyed little repose in my own bosom. I feel myself, 
at the jDresent moment, between ten and twelve o'clock on 
Saturday night, moralizing and melancholy. I will write, 
therefore, as far as paper permits, and ease my mind in 
some small degree, by imveiling some of its weaknesses, its 
follies, and its vices, to you : — 

" There are three springs of everlasting imeasiness per- 
petually flowing in my bosom, — the cares of life, ambition 
of fame, and, the worst, the most dejilorable of all, re- 
ligious horrors. With regard to the first, ■ — in my business, 
chained as I am, like Prometheus to the rpck, the vulture 
of care feeds on my bowels. Since I wrote in September, 
I have suffered in my mind what I would not again undergo 
for any temptation which lucre could offer. You may 
guess Avhat were my sensations, when I tell you, that from 
the middle of November to the latter end of January, for a 
trifle which men of firmer minds would have laughed at, I 
tortured myself with the agonizing apprehensions of again 
being dragged to Doncaster Sessions. I cannot give you 
further explanation here ; the danger is now j^ast, and the 
spirit of alarm which harassed my dreams by night, and 
my reveries by day, is laid to rest. I tremble to tread 
upon its grave, lest the pressure of my foot should awaken 
it again. 

" On the second point, — my mad ambition, — ever since 



94 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

last August, my brain has been in the state of Vesuvius 
during the crisis of eruption. I have been laboring con- 
tinually iipon a spot of Parnassus, which j)romises to be as 
unfruitful, as ungrateful to me, as the most barren field I 
ever cultivated there before. As my jilan is still imperfect, 
and the issue in suspense, I shall wait a little longer before 
I reveal it to you. If I be successful, I am sure of your 
congratulations; if I be unfortunate, you shall judge whether 
I deserved to be so. 

" On the last head, — my religious horrors, — I will be 
candid, as I have always endeavored to be to you. [Here 
followed five lines, which are blotted out in the original 
letter, — they probably refer to the happy experience of 
his early piety at school.] Such has been my education, — 
such, I will venture to say, has been my experience in the 
morning of life, — that I can never, never entirely reject it, 
and embrace any system of morality not grounded ujion 
that revelation. What can I do ? I am tossed to and fro 
on a sea of doubts and perplexities ; the further I am 
carried from that shore where once I was happily moored, 
the weaker grow my hopes of ever reaching another where 
I may anchor in safety; at the same time, my hopes of 
returning to the harbor I have left are diminished in pro- 
portion. This is the present state of my mind ! I do not 
know whether you will be able, from this hasty, imperfect 
sketch, to understand your friend any better : I cannot 
expect that it will increase your esteem ; but I trust, 
though it may make yoix think less highly, it won't induce 
you to think less kindly, of your sincere and afiectionatc 
friend." 

"I do not hesitate to say," on resummg his pen, "that a 
most solemn conviction is impressed upon my heart, that 
Christianity, — pure, and humble, and holy, as we find it 



RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS. 95 

ill tlio discourses of Jesus and His apostles, — is equally- 
worthy of its Divine Author, and beneficial to mankind, 
I believe no human being, of any other profession, can ever 
be half so happy as a true believer in it, — and why? 
Because his faith is certain j no doubt of the truth of his 
religion can possibly remain on his mind ; whereas the 
most enlightened deistical philosopher is at best but [half a 
line crossed out] a half convert to the opinion he professes. 
He believes, — not that there is a God, — that the soul of 
man is immortal, — but that there may he a God, — that the 
soul of man may he immortal : he hopes for, not expects, a 
day of retribution : consequently the spur to his virtues is 
blunt, and the bridle to his vices weaker, than if he were 
assured of the future reward of the one, and punishment of 
the other. But my paper is full" 



CHAPTER VII. 

SELF UPBRAIDIXGS — CONFLICTS AND WAVERINGS — LETTERS TO IIXS 
BROTHER — SPIRITUAL DARKNESS — RIGHT VIEWS OF SAVING FAITH 
SPIRITUAL LIGHT — VIEWS ON HYMN WRITING — NOTE TO A QUAKER 
FRIEND. 

The preceding letter brings us to that period of Mont- 
gomery's personal history when eternal things re-a.sserted 
their claims npon his attention. His checkered fortimcs 
have hitherto been the batthng of circumstances, the great 
bread-and-butter struggle often necessary at the outset 
of life to develope what a man is, and to determine his 
course in the world. 

Without the antecedents of friends, fortune, or patron- 
age, to help him in the fight, he has bravely sustained 
himself, and secured a position of trust and comfort, looking 
out upon a future of honorable competency and dawning 
fame. 

Fresh sources of unrest now unseal themselves withni. 
He feels that he has drifted from the old landmarks of his 
religious faith, and is breasting an ocean of perilous uncer- 
tainty. A deep sense of sijiritual orphanage takes possession 
of his soul; he is far from his Father's house, and the 
Livmg Way is obscured M'ith doubts. 

" Oh wliei'G shall rest be found, 
Rest for the weary soul ? 
'T were vain the ocean depths to sound, 
Or pierce to either pole ! 



CONFLICTS AND WAVERINGS. 97 

The world can never give 

The bliss for which we sigh ; 
'T is not the whole of life to live, 

Nor all of death to die," — 

such is the monrnful i;tterance of his spirit. 

His early religious education he cannot ignore. Divorced 
from God, what can a reasonable man hope for ? Wedded 
to the world, Avho has ever found it could satisfy the 
cravings of immortal want ? More than this, it reminded 
him of the trust he once had in the Saviour of lost men ; 
the peace which filled his bosom when redeeming love 
smiled upon his penitent confessions, healed the breaches 
of sin, and made him strong and joyful in the blessed fellow- 
ship of holy things. 

Early piety and privileges seem more real and precious 
as he grows older, and with a profound sense of their loss 
come fearful forebodings of that 

" death, whose pang 



Outlasts the lleeting breath." 

Though Montgomery had never left the paths of respect- 
able morality, he seems to have abandoned all that distinct- 
ively belongs to a religious life. Defection of the heart 
from God is now bearing its bitter fruit. An enlightened 
conscience and an unfilial spirit are m conflict. The doc- 
trines of the Cross he cannot reject, while the rebel will 
quarrels with their strictness. The requirements of the 
gospel seem liarsh and severe without that love Avhich 
transmutes what seem to be tasks into loyal tributes and 
holy service to the Lord of Life and Glory. Its renun- 
ciations of the world wear an icy look, and he shrinks from 
their barren grandeur, for he does not experience the rich 
compensations in store for faithful believers. The anti- 



98 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

thetic mystery of the Scnj)tnres is not yet revealed to liim; 

— "dying, yet behold we live" — " sorrowful, yet always 
rejoicing" — "having nothing and yet possessing all things" 

— than which, nothing so unfolds the riches of redeeming 
love. 

Long an outcast from his Father's house, like the return- 
ing prodigal, he began " to be in want." 

The circle into ■\\'hich he was first thrown at Sheffield 
was of the Unitarian persuasion. No Moravian jiilgrims 
had pitched their tent there. Every year he visited Ful- 
neck, — the Eden of the world to him, — and renewed the 
endearing intimacies of his boyhood. The Brethren re- 
ceived him Avith fatherly cordiality, and, we doubt not, 
strove to renew the defaced piety of their Avandcring 
child. 

In the light of an increasing seriousness of mind, the 
witty use of Scrij^ture phrases he abandoned as irreverent 
and trifling; a graver tone appeared in his articles; club 
meetings at the " Wicker," where pipes and politics, litera- 
ture, fine arts, and the social glass, diversified the evening, 
he felt less relish for ; and finally, preparing one night to 
go out and meet his friends, he took down his overcoat, 
but instead of putting it on, he reflected, hesitated, and 
returning it to its accustomed peg, seated himself at his 
own fireside, and never resumed his place among the jovial 
sociabilities of the club or tavern. 

More frequently he dropped into the Methodist chapels, 
occupied at the time by men of fervent piety ; and often he 
stole to a little class-meeting, in the lowly cottage of a 
Methodist brother, where, in the liappy experience and 
hearty devotion of these humble believers, he beheld that 
living faith which his soul yearned for. 

From a letter to his brother Ignatius, ordained a clergy- 



LETTEK TO HIS BiiOTIIER. 99 

man, and now teacher at Fnlneck, we make the following 
extract : — 

" You see, dear brother, how apt I am to look far before 
me, much farther, indeed, than I can see; and my heart 
aches so often, that it hardly knows any other sensations 
than those of remorse, apprehension, and despondency. I 
have almost outlived my hopes, in this world, — I mean my 
worldly hopes. How comes it, brother, that we seldom, 
perhaps never, seriously turn our thoughts to eternity till 
we have been disgusted with the vanity, and sickened with 
the disappointments of time? Why cannot we embrace 
both this world and the next at once? Is the enjoyment 
of the one incompatible with the other ? Am I to lead a 
life of self-denial and suffering, as cruel — and, I verily 
believe, as unprofitable — as the mortifications of a hermit, 
for the sake, or, rather, as an indispensable condition of 
salvation ? You cannot mistake me here, and imagine that 
I mean by the enjoyment of the world an indulgence in 
criminal excesses. I mean only those pleasures which men 
of strictly moral and conscientious minds think innocent, 
but against which the Dissenters and Methodists inveigh 
Avith a bitterness and bigotry that makes me sometimes 
imagine that religion is, indeed, a cross on which its pro- 
fessors are condemned to linger out their lives in agonies ; 
but I must not expatiate on this subject, lest I should be 
beti'ayed into impiety of speech on what almost turns my 
brain to contemplate. Yet all this I think I could be 
content to suffer for the assurance of that peace with God 
which they profess to feel, and to which I am almost an 
utter stranger. I have no confidence towards him, excejDt 
what all the world must have, — a confidence that he is 
good, and that Avhat he does is right, whether I compre- 
hend it or not ; and that if he shuts me up in everlasting 



100 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

and unspeakable misery, he "will convince me first that I 
have deserved it ; and that, even consistently Avith his 
infinite mercy and infinite power, he could not mitigate my 
punishment. But why am I tormenting you with my 
sorrows ? I know what you would answer to all this. I 
know what way you would point out to me to escape 
present and future sufierings ! I dare not tell you that I 
cannot lay hold of that salvation which you preach, lest 
I should be guilty of lying against the Sjiirit of God ; but 
indeed, brother, I sometmies fear I never shall lay hold 
of it. Farewell." 

Dark and bitter is this letter, — upbraiding and forebod- 
ing, — the two elements of a soul convinced of its own 
short-coming, and vainly imagining a life of self-imposed 
penance can purchase that peace and joy which faith in 
Christ the Redeemer can alone give. An experience like 
this is nothing new or micommon in religious history ; and 
some are ready to tell us it is the natural consequence of 
too great severity of doctrine, the morbid helplessness of 
religious fear. Morbid it certainly is, and we can trace in 
the author streaks of physical disease, like that which some- 
times dimmed the spiritual vision of Cowper, 

To another friend he writes : " Since I saAv you in Shef- 
field, I have experienced some severe conflicts of mind. I 
believe my last letter was gloomy. It set in clouds and 
darkness ; a long night of silence ensued, and the morning 
of the present efi"usion is not likely to be more cheerful. 

" The affectionate and consoling letter Avhich you wrote 
in reply lies befere me. I have been reading it again as I 
have done many times before, with renewed and unsatis- 
fied interest. You say, a person cannot helj) believing 
Avhat he does believe, so that if we do our duty, by en- 
quirmg what is truth, in a conscientious manner, it can be 



SPIRITUAL DARKNESS. 101 

of little consequence whether we believe accurately or not 
in all the minutite of religion. My dear friend, there is 
danger of misaj^prehending this doctrine. We may think 
we are seeking truth when w^e arc wilfully and persever- 
ingly embracing error. The Christian religion seems to 
me to require such a child-like simplicity, such purity of 
heart, and singleness of mind, that when I contemplate it 
calmly, I despair of ever aj^proaching its standard. It is 
hard to renounce the world, and all those pleasures which 
the Avorld deems not only innocent, but useful and com- 
mendable ; and yet, methinks that Christianity requires 
the sacrifice of them. For my own part, I cannot, at pres- 
ent, take up my cross and follow the despised and rejected 
Man of Sorrows through poverty, reproach, and tribula- 
tion : and yet — you will say it is a strange confession — I 
carry a heavier cross and bear a deeper ignominy in my 
own upbraiding conscience : I feel the Christian's suffer- 
ings without the Christian's hoj)e of that eternal weight 
of glory which shall reward them. My mind is not deeply 
laden with crimes ; but i;nbelief — an unbelief from which 
I cannot deliver myself— hangs heavy on my heart, and 
outweighs all those httle joys, for which I am unwilling to 
relinquish the world. I am sometimes sunk in such deplor- 
able despondency, that I feel all the pangs of a victim, 
under sentence of eternal damnation, without that salutary 
conviction of the reality of my danger, which might com- 
pel me to flee from the Avrath to come. But I am not al- 
ways thus ; sometimes a cheering ray of hoi^e — of Christian 
hope — breaks through the pagan darkness of my mind, and 
opens heaven to my desiring view. O, then, my friend, how 
does my heart expand, my soul aspire ! . . . Do not be 
frightened at this picture of your friend : it is faithful, but 
is drawn in an hour of bitterness ; and if I had delayed until 
9* 



102 LIFE OF MONTGOMEIIY. 

to-morrow, I might have sketched a pictm-e more pleasing, 
yet not more faithful. I have some good qualities — a warm 
heart, a Aveak head, a most despotic imagination. . . . 
Some cruel disappointments in life, Avhich have j^reyed, and 
will continue to prey upon my lieart, have aggravated my 
natural melancholy. The education I received, indepen- 
dently of all these, has forever incapacitated me from being 
contented and happy under any other form of religion than 
that which I imbibed with my mother's milk : at the same 
time, my restless and imaginative mind and my Avild and 
ungovernable imagination have long ago broken loose from 
the anchor of faith, and have been driven, the sj^ort of 
winds and waves, over an ocean of doubts, round which 
every coast is defended by the rocks of despair that forbid 
me to enter the harbor in view." 

A natural melancholy is more fully disclosed in this letter 
and helps in part to account for his sufterings, whose main 
cause indeed, lies far deeper than this, — a misapprehension 
of the truths Avhich he professes to believe. The terms of 
salvation neither ask nor require this agony of spirit, this 
long period of probationary suffering as a condition of ac- 
ceptance. 

It is noAvhere stated in the Scriptures; it formed no 
part of Christian experience in apostolic times, nor Avas 
it ever preached by Gospel ministers at any time. " Re- 
pent and believe," is the simple and single condition to 
pardon and peace ; and Avhoever makes it narroAver or 
broader shuts the door of hope and heaven to the strug- 
gling soul. This duty is enjoined immediately ; "noAv" is 
called the accepted time ; Christ himself guarantees suc- 
cess. " Come unto me, all ye that are Aveary and heavy 
laden, and I Avill give you rest." " Come ! " is it not a 
word of Avelcome ? 



RIGHT VIEW OF SAVING FAITH. 103 

" I will give you rest." Is it not a simple, uncloggcd 
promise, which lie who is Lord of all, can most royally 
fulfill? 

The fullness and preciseness of the Sci'ipture doctrine of 
" turning to God" — " coming to Christ" — " accepting the 
offers of salvation," are remarkable, and are apt to be over- 
looked in the many accessories given to it by the manifold 
experiences of men. These, in time, are liable to be taken 
for essential parts, and the mistake cumbers the way of 
many a soul in search of mercy. 

Many a sincere seeker fails to struggle into light and 
comfort, thi'ough self-imposed tasks upon his own s^writ, 
directing his eye to false issues, or giving himself to an 
unwholesome brooding over a single truth, which may 
paralyze, if naked, but sheathed and blended with other 
truths, will stir the soul to lay hold mightily on " Him who 
is mighty to save." 

Child-like faith, a simple taking God at his word, strongly 
characterizes the piety of both the Methodists and Mora- 
vians. This sj^irit does not linger shiveringly around the 
frowning abutments of some single truth, afraid lest they 
fall and crush him, but it glides through the open door of 
promise into the Inner Court, where wrought into har- 
mony, all the doctrines of the Cross glow with the clear 
shining of divine love. Here doubts vanish, the burden of 
sin rolls off, fears are left behind, and to the tearful suppli- 
cation, "Lord, I believe — help thou mine unbelief!" light, 
comfort, hope, break upon the soul, and it learns the mean- 
ing of that rebuking and searching scripture, " Whosoever 
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall 
not enter therein." 

" O how shall I rejoice" writes a Moravian clergyman to 
liini, "to hear that the liorizuii of v<>iii' soul is serene and 



104 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

unclouded ; that doubts and scruples liaA'e ceased to agitate 
your seeking mind ; and that you have fully found again 
that unseen but ever-present Friend, Mhose hand has been 
on you for good thus for ; who was the comfort of your 
earliest day ; the dawning of whose love you once felt, — 
which love alone can smooth the path of life, cheer our 
gloomy hours, and make the approach of death not to be 
dreaded ! Pardon the liberty I take ; ray anxious concern 
for your happiness must plead my excuse, and my own ex- 
perience makes me thus speak. . . . Convinced I was 
a sinner, and stood in need of a Saviour, I flew to Jesus, — ■ 
simply and child-like : need I tell you the consequence ? O 
my friend ! do likewise ; be a child again, in seeking safety 
in the arms of your Saviour, and there you Avill find rest 
for your weary soul." 

Is there not here a glimmer of hope ? 

" I stir the ashes of my mind, 
And here and there a spark I find 
That leaps into a moment's light, 
Then dwindles down again in night, — 
Yet burns a fire within my breast, 
"Which cannot quench, and will not rest; 
Oh, for a secret, sudden rent 
In this hard heart to give it vent ! 
Oh, for a gale of heavenly breath 
To quicken life again from death ! " 

This halting and dreariness of spirit, Montgomery carried 
about with him a long time. Light sometimes shot through 
the cloud, when it again thickened, to pass, however, finally 
away, and leave him in the blessed sunshine of Christian 
hope. 

To a friend he writes, " I have not room for another word 
of business ; but I turn with gratitude to the most deeply 



SPIRITUAL LIGUT. 105 

interesting parts of your letter, on "vvhieli, however, I must 
say much less than I think and feel. I was in very deep 
despondency when your sudden letter came, — sudden 1 
call it, for it darted like an arrow from your heart into mine. 
It roused, it warmed, it melted me. It arrived, and I read 
it just as I was going to chapel on Sunday morning, and it 
■well prepared my mind for receiving a consoling sermon. 
In the afternoon I was obliged to stay at home. I took up 
a volume of Cennick's most simple, but truly evangelical, 
sermons, and opened to a discourse on the very text Avhich 
you had sent as the label of your arroio, and wliich had sunk 
into my soul, — viz., 1 Tim. i. 15. I read it over most 
eagerly and earnestly, and I was much refreshed and com- 
forted by it. I mention this happy coincidence, because I 
am sure it will delight you, that you Avere made on this oc- 
casion the messenger of good tidings to me. I am sure 
that I am not superstitious, but as I am deeply conscious of 
the omniscience and omnipresence of God, I can never be- 
lieve that he is an idle spectator of the thoughts, words, 
actions, and accidents of his creatures. In what manner he 
interferes with any or with all of these is beyond my com- 
prehension, but that he does sometimes rule them I am 
compelled to believe ; and as we are taught that every good 
and perfect gift comes from Him, the means through which 
it comes must be apj)ointed or influenced by him. I did 
then, and I do now, attribute it to his grace, that these ap- 
parent accidents concurred to relieve me, and encourage 
me to hope in his mercy for final deliverance from one of 
the sins that most easily besets me — despair ; for it is a sin 
to despair when God proclaims himself to be Love, — des- 
pair gives him the lie. You will, notwithstanding tliis frank 
avowal of what many would call faaatlclsni, understand 
that I am no Calvuiist : God make me a Christian ! and let 



106 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

those that woukl be more jiride themselves in being the fol- 
lowers of men ! Among all sects who preach Christ cruci- 
fied the disciples of Jesus are to be found ; they are confined 
to none ; they are excluded />o?;i none ; at least I tliink so. 

" Indeed, my dear friend, I have no Methodist hymns to 
send you. When I Avas at school I wrote many, but I liave 
seldom dared to touch holy things since then. My lips and 
my heart want purifying with a coal from the altar." 

In reply to a gentleman bespeaking an effort of his pen 
in this direction, he thus feelingly alludes to his mifitness 
for the work : 

" When I was a boy, I wrote a great many hymns ; 
indeed, the first-fruits of my mind were all consecrated to 
Jllni Avho never despises the day of small things, even in 
the j^oorest of his creatures ; but as I grew up, and my 
heart degenerated, I directed my talents, such as they 
were, to otlier services, and seldom, indeed, since my four- 
teenth year have they been employed in the delightful 
duties of the sanctuary. Many conspiring and adverse cir- 
cumstances that have confounded, afflicted, and discouraged 
my mind have also compelled me to forbear from composing 
hymns of jirayer and praise for many past years, because I 
found that I could not enter into the spirit of such divine 
themes, with that humble boldness, that earnest expecta- 
tion, and ardent feeling of love to God and truth which 
were wont to inspire me, when I was an imcorri;pted boy, 
full of tenderness, zeal, and simi^licity. I have therefore, as 
you will perceive in reading my little volume, only occa- 
sionally touched a chord of the harp of saints and angels, 
and, thougli I have started and trembled at the sound 
which my own fingers had awakened, yet I am not ashamed 
to acknowledge that tliose divine 'incidentals' liave 
always made my pulse quicken and my heart burn within 



VIEWS ON IIYMN-WKITING. 107 

me when they occurred. Nay, I know that in several of 
the smaller poems those sparks of fire from tlic altar have 
kindled the whole song into a bright and more beautiful 
lliune, Avhicli many of the readers (as well as the writer) 
have perceived and confessed. Yet I have not dared to 
assume a sacred subject as the theme of any whole piece 
tliat I have written, on account of the gloom and despond- 
ency that frequently hung over my pi'ospects and sometimes 
almost sunk my hopes into despair. At present, I am so 
deeply engaged with two small pieces on occasions suffici- 
ently serious to occupy all the overflowing spirits that I can 
spare from the cares and vexations of a business that allows 
me very little leisure of time, and hardly any of mind', that, 
though I feel sincerely disposed to gratify myself by fulfill- 
ing, at least in a small degree, your flattering request, I 
cannot pledge myself to make an early attempt. I compose 
very slowly, and only by fits, when I can rouse my indolent 
powers into exertion ; so that, unless some very auspicious 
opportunity occurs, I can promise you nothing in less than 
two months. However, I will lie in wait for my heart, and 
when I can string it to the pitch of David's lyre, I will set 
a j^salm to the chief musician." 

Extracts from a letter to his brother Ignatius, bearing 
the date of Jime, 1807, further disclose his inner history. 

" Slicfficld, June 2Q, 1807. 
" My Dear Brother, 

"When St. John was in the spirit on the Lord's 
day, ho saw visions of future glory : I am in the spirit also 
on the Lord's day, and I behold scenes of past happiness, 
returning like lovely dreams upon me. I am transported 
lo my native country ; I am turned back to iuflmcy, and in 
the morning of life the Sun of Iligliteousness is rising upt)n 



108 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

mo "with healing in his wings ; alas ! how long is it since I 
saw that sun except in memory's melancholy eye ! 

" You are now m the land of my birth, and near the 
spot where I first saAV the light : of how little importance 
is it to all the world besides, that I Avas ever born at all ! 
Yet to me, how awful is the existence into which I was 
called without my own consent, and from which I cannot 
retire, though I were to give myself up to suffering for mil- 
lions of ages to purchase the privilege of annihilation ! 
Here, then, I am ; and what I am finally here, I must for 
ever be. Is it, indeed, in my own power to choose between 
eternal bliss and everlasting burnings? If it be, it is truly 
time for me to awake and look around me, with an earn- 
estness that will make every other concern of life indiffer- 
ent to me, to see how I shall escape the latter and secure 
the former ; — for to the one or to the other I am inevitably 
predestined. I have the choice of these two ; but I have no 
other choice. 

" Brother ! how is it possible that I should hesitate an 
instant ? Why have I not, since I began to Avrite this 
letter, already by an act of that flxith Avhich is the power 
of God communicated to his creatures, and to Avhich all 
things are possible, — why have I not already decided my 
condition for eternity? Is there anything more mysterious 
in the wliole mystery of iniquity, than that a man shall be 
deeply, dreadfully, convinced of sin, and believe, almost 
without daring to make a reserve, in all the threatenings 
and judgments of God, — yet have no confidence in his 
promises and declarations of mercy ? And this is my case, 
as nearly as I can express it. Yet I do not, and I dare not 
utterly despair when I look at God ; but I do and must 
despair when I look at myself; and my everlasting state 
depends upon the issue of the controversy between him and 



LETTER TO IIIS BROTHER. 109 

me : if lie conquers, I shall be saved — if I prevail against 
him, I perish. 

" I owe you my warmest thanks for two very affectionate 
letters, the one from Grace Hill, and the other from Ayr. 
I am exceedingly glad that you have had the opportunity 
of changing for a time both your place of abode and your 
daily occupations. I know — though you never gave me so 
much of your confidence as to tell me so — that you have 
more employment at Grace Hill than your powers can 
support, without frequent and injurious exhaustion both of 
mind and body : it is true that you are in the service of the 
congregation, and He who is the Elder of it has a right to 
all the services that you can render him, and it is your duty 
— your privilege, I mean — to spend and to be sj^ent for 
him. Yet I think your brethren ought to lay no heavier 
burthen upon you, than your strength, well put forth, can 
bear Avithout sinking under the weight ; for I am sure you 
will serve them and their master much better by serving 
them to the eleventh hour, than by laboring yourself to 
death before the end of the fifth ; for though you may, by 
a mortal exertion, do more work in a given time, you will 
do less on the whole ; and the Lord's vineyard is so great, 
and his husbandmen so few and so feeble, that their lives 
ouglit to be precious in their own sight, in proportion to the 
magnitude and fertility of the field before them. 

" Henry Steinhaur arrived last night in Shefiield with a 
convoy of sixteen children from the neighborhood, mIio are 
all Fuhieck scholars. Some good has come of my residing 
in Shefiield. Who knows what eternal consequences may 
result f]-om so many boys and girls hearing the simple gos- 
pel of Christ crucified preached fiiithfully to them among 
the Brethren ! It warms my cold, and melts my hard heart 
sometimes when I think that I may thus accidentally have 
10 



110 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

been the cause of promoting the everlasting welfare of some 
of my fellow creatures in this neighborhood, where I came 
an outcast, and in which I have lived a stranger. The new 
newspaper which I so much dreaded has hurt me very little 
as yet ; and I am certainly much less frightened at it since 
it appeared than I was before it came out, when I expected 
Goliath, but have hitherto only seen his armour-bearer. 

" Yours, &c., 

"J. MONTGOMEKY. 
" Rev. Ignatius Montgomery, Ayr, Scotland." 

The eternal issues which hang upon the present, feelingly 
touched upon in this letter, infinitely enhances its " Value 
of a Moment," written perhaps at this time. 

'Twixt that, long fled, which gave us light, 
And that wliich soon shall end in night, 
There is a point no eye can see, 
Yet on it hangs eternity. 

This is that moment — Avho can tell, 
AVhether it leads to heaven or hell ? 
This is that moment — as we choose, 
Th' immortal soul we save or lose. 

Time past and time to come are not, 
Time present is onr only lot ; 
t)h, God, henceforth our hearts incline 
To seek no other love than thine ! 

In a little note, a few months later, to one of his Quaker 
friends, once a fellow captive at York, we begin to trace a, 
growing consciousness of the endearing relation between 
Christ and his followers in M'orks of love — the first fruits 
of a life, in due time, refined and beautified by the spirit of 
his Heavenly Master, 



NOTE TO A QUAKER FRIEND. Ill 

" I am sorry to learn that yoii have suffered so much by 
lameness ; but you trust in God, — continue to trust in him, 
for he will never leave or forsake you. 

"As a token of his remembrance, I have enclosed a five 
pound Bank of England note, which I hope will be service- 
able to you in your present low estate. Accept it, Henry, 
not from me but from Him, who though he Avas rich, yet for 
our sakes he became poor, and by suffering all the ills of 
poverty, sanctified them to his people. For His sake and in 
His name receive it ; for His sake and in His name I send it. 
I assure you, my dear friend, that I feel far more pleasure in 
being, on this occasion, the minister of His bounty to you, 
than I could possibly derive from any other disposal of this 
small sum, which I considered to be as sacredly your proj)- 
erty, from the moment when He put it in my heart to send 
it, as it had been mine before, God, who gives it, bless it 
to you ! " 



CHAPTER YIII. 

EDITORIAL XOTICES — FUGITIVE POEJIS — DR. AIKIX — HOME AFFECTIOXS 
— "the wanderer OF SWITZERLAND" — ITS RECEPTION — EDINBDRGH 
REVIEW — NEW FRIENDS — DANIEL PARKEN — LITTLE POEMS — LYRI- 
CAL BALLADS — SOUTHEY'S ADVICE TO ELLIOTT. 

!N"apoleo:n" is now on his march through Europe, and the 
Jns Aveekly chronicles his ravages : " In his letter to the 
Swiss dei)uties, Bonaj^arte demands an entire sacrifice of 
all their factious and selfish passions, and m the same 
breath he sets them a noble example of disinterested 
moderation, by peremptorily declaring that he will not 
permit the establishment of any government in the can- 
tons, which may be hostile to his OAvn, for Switzerland 
must in future be Uhe open frontier of France!'' He had 
previously converted the Pays de Vaud into 'a highway'' 
between his dominions ; and we may already anticii^ate 
his seizure of the dykes of Holland to supply his table with 
frogs." — January 13, 1803. " Bonaparte has pronounced 
his fiat concerning Switzerland : a constitution has been 
recommended to the Helvetic Consulta, and embraced by 
them with becoming humility. It was received, discussed, 
and adopted in a day. Since that time a deputation has 
been dispatched to Paris, from the cantons, to beseech the 
First Consul to inclose ' the open frontier of France,' and 
annex it to the integrity of the ' Great Nation.' "Why 



EDITORIAL NOTICES. 113 

does not Bonaparte at once pass a general inclosure bill, 
and take in all the waste lands in Europe — has he not a 
common right to them all?" — January 20, 1803. "The 
heart of Switzerland is broken! and liberty has been 
driven from the only sanctuary which she found on the 
continent. But the unconquered and unconquerable oft- 
spring of Tell, disdaining to die slaves in the land where 
they were born free, are emigrating to America. There, 
in some region remote and romantic, where Solitude has 
never seen the face of man, nor Silence been startled by 
his voice since the hour of creation, may the illustrious 
exiles find another Switzerland, another country rendered 
dear by the presence of Liberty ! But even there, amid 
mountains more awful, and forests more sombre than his 
own, when the echoes of the wilderness shall be awakened 
by the enchantment of that song, which no Swiss in a 
foreign clime ever heard, without fondly recalling the land 
of his nativity, and weeping with afiection, — how will the 
heart of the exile be Avrung with home-sickness ! and O ! 
what a sickness of heart must that be Avhich arises not 
from 'hope delayed,' but from hope extinguished — yet 
remembered!'''' — February 17, 1803. 

The heart of the editor is glowmg with sympathy for 
Switzerland, in whose rocky defiles and icy fastnesses 
Liberty has waged, through the ages, its stern and unequal 
conflict with despotism. 

From an interest thus kindled, sjorung the first poem 
which placed Montgomery's name before the British pub- 
lic among the list of acknowledged poets. Conceived as a 
simple ballad, it grew to a dramatic poem in six parts. 
Stirred as was the author by his theme, so distrustful was 
he of his merits as an artist, that it was three years lag- 
ging through his press. 
10* 



114 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Meanwhile he was paving his way for welcome recogni- 
tion, by sending abroad, through the columns of the Irts^ 
many a little fugitive of the muse, bearing the signature of 
Alcseus, and gradually winning upon the public attention. 
Dr. Aikin, at that time influential in certain literary cir- 
cles, transferred them to the pages of his Annual Re- 
view, with flattering notices, most grateful to their modest 
and then unkno-mi author. Among them are some of the 
finest fruits of his pen. 

The Common JLot, was a birth-day meditation during 
a solitary walk, on a clear, cold, winter's morning. In this 
little j)oem the fellowships of man with man are grouped 
with a simplicity and pathos which have stamped it with 
a world-wide fame. 

The Jbij of Grief utters Avhat the bruised spirit hath 
often felt : 

" While the wounds of woe are healing, 
While the heart is all resigned, 
'Tis the solemn feast of feeling, 
'Tis the Sabbath of the mind." 

The Grave discloses 

" a calm for those who weep, 

A rest for weary pilgrims found : 
They softly lie, and sweetly sleep, 
Low in the ground." 

But from these " smouldering ashes" the poet leaps 
with 

" The soul, of origin divine, 

G-od's glorious image, freed from clay. 
In heaven's eternal sphere to shine, 
A star of day." 



HOME AFFECTIONS. 115 

Nor is " the pillow, pressed by acliing heads," or that 

" little flower 

With silver crest and golden eye, 
That welcomes every changing hour, 
And weathers every sky," 

or bird, or "cloud," below or beyond the "picturing 
powei's of his song." 

" Most of the pieces of distinguished merit which adorn 
the Poetical Register are signed with the names of writers 
already known to the j^ublic," says the Doctor. " We ob- 
serve, however, some with the signature Aleoeus, which 
are excelled by none in spirit, originality, and true po- 
etic fire." 

Home duties sprung up in the young man's path. " I 
am glad to hear from you," writes Joseph Gales from this 
side of the waters, " that my sisters are doing pretty well. 
Accept, my good friend, of my most cordial thanks for 
your friendly attention to them. Be to them still, as you 
have in some good degree been, a hr other in my stead 
who am lost to them. And also sufier me to entreat you 
— though I am satisfied entreaty is unnecessary — to con- 
tinue to show kindness to the good old folks, my aged 
parents. I fear they have sufiered greatly on my account. 

that I could soothe and comfort them as they sink into 
the grave! But this is denied me. O, do it for me, my 
dear Montgomei-y, as you have opportunity !" 

Fraternal afiections pleasantly reveal themselves in the 
following letter from Montgomery to his adopted sisters, 
the Misses Gales, while on a visit to Scarborough : 

" My dear friends, you will be curious, if not anxious, to 
know how I come on in the world of Scarborough. Since 

1 wrote last to you I have outlived a whole generation of 



116 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

visitors at this lionse, and am now a kind of antediluvian 
patriarch of a wliole fortnight's standing. In consequence 
of this, I have been, by the law of primogeniture, exalted 
to the head of the table, which you may be sure is an 
honor I most reluctantly accepted, and which I bear most 
meekly. Hitherto I have had some good supporters about 
me in some fat and fair ladies, who sit next to me, and 
among whom I appear like a rush-light among torches. 
They assist me in carving, and almost entirely save me the 
trouble of talking, for both of Avhich I am truly thankful. 
' How do you employ your time ?' you are ready to ask. 
I employ it so stupidly that I could very well aiford to 
lend six hours a day, on good security, to any lady or 
gentleman who would pay me handsome interest for it. I 
eat and drink and walk all day, and try to sleep all night. 
I never in my life lived so long a time without fire. It is 
a fact, that I have never seen a fire in this house, nor been 
near one in all Scarborough, except at the barber's shop, 
to the best of my recollection. There is self-denial Avith a 
vengeance for you ! I only smoke one pijie at night, and 
sometimes none. I have several times been out in a small 
boat for a few miles in the bay. This is very pleasant ; 
and the sea-breezes are like gales from paradise ; they 
warm my withered heart into life, and blow my mildewed 
checks into bloom. One evening I went out a-fishing, and 
had charming sport. For two hours, in a chill atmosphere, 
on a dark sea, I watched a cork floating, till my eyes 
ached and my brain was dizzy ; and so intent and expert 
was I at the trade, that for a long time I was fishing with 
a naked hook, the rogues below having nibbled away the 
bait, I have often fished along the strea7n of life m i\ns, 
manner. However, on this memorable occasion I caught 
two fishes ; but it was not my fault. I could not help it ; 



MONTGOMERY'S FOUR FRIENDS. HY 

they himg themselves with my line, and I hope they for- 
gave me with their dying breath ; and this they ought to 
have done, because I have freely forgiven their brethren 
who would not let me catch them. 

" I don't know what to say about my health ; and as for 
my spirits, they have been several times so agitated since 
I came hither, that, hke the sea after a storm, they will be 
a long time before they can rock themselves calm. Pray 
write to me soon ; and don't, on any account, forget to 
teU me how your dear and honored parents are. I was 
dreaming last night with all my might about you alto- 
gether. Give my best remembrance to all my friends who 
think me worth inquiring after. Have I not been very 
good to write three times to Sheffield, and never once 
inquire after my brute creation ? Give my love to Bully 
[the bird], to Blunder [the dog], and what you please to 
Puss. Tell the garden that I hope it is in good health, 
and grows well in my absence. Farewell." 

Among his Sheffield acquaintance, there were three drawn 
towards him by congeniality of tastes and jDurposes, whose in- 
timacy formed the most delightful portion of his social life : 
Samuel Roberts, a master manufacturer, whose large and 
flourishing business did not hinder him from occasion- 
ally occupying the poet's corner of the Iris, or harden his 
heart against the cry of suffi3ring humanity; Rowland 
Hodgson, a gentleman of fortune and piety; and Mr. 
Geoi'ge Bennett, a vigorous promoter of all the new 
evangelical agencies, just starting on their beneficent er- 
rands to a sorrowing world. For more than a quarter 
of a century, these four fi'iends met once a month at each 
other's houses, to lay out jilans, and to strengthen each 
other in labors of Christian usefulness. Chantrey's genius, 
whose suburban l:»irth made Sheffield proud to claim him 



118 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

as her own child, \ras early recognized by Montgomery, 
and the Iris was the first paj)er Avhich introduced him to 
the public, and predicted his renown. 

In 1805, when he was in Sheffield painting portraits in oil 
for four guineas, he took an excellent likeness of the poet, 
from which the engraving m this volume was taken. 

January 9, 1806, the Iris advertised The Wanderer of 
Switzerland. Three years passing through the press, the 
edition, five hundred copies, was sold in as many weeks. A 
second edition was soon imnted in London, and the author 
was ofiered a hundred pounds for his coj^yright. This he 
declined, to accept proposals from Longman & Co., popular 
publishers in the metropolis, giving him half the profits and 
allowing him to retain the coi^yright. 

The Wanderer of Switzerland had no reason to com- 
plain of his reception. The subject — a patriotic plaint over 
down-trodden liberties, impersonated in the touching ex- 
periences of a fugitive family — was one which directly 
appealed to the strongest affections and best instincts of 
the heart. In certain cii'cles it was very popular. And 
though the popularity of a work at its outset is no neces- 
sary proof of genuine merit, it forms an important item in 
its marketable value. Its success surprised its author, and 
the generous Avelcome given it by many of the critics of the 
day reassured him in this road to fame. 

In a favorable notice in the Eclectic Review, whose 
tone was given by such men as Robert Hall, John Foster, 
Dr. Gregory, and Adam Clai-k : " We are happy," ran one 
paragraph of the editor's criticism, " to recognize in Mr. 
Montgomery the Alcffius, whose lyre has often delighted 
us. He displays a rich and romantic fancy, a tender heart, 
a copious and active command of imagery and language, 
and an irresistible influence over the fcehuGcs. His shorter 



"WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND." ng 

poems are elegant and tasteful ; some of them are highly 
poetical and interesting ; others assume a degree of cheei*- 
fulness, yet very much softened by an air of tender melan- 
choly. It is in the higher sj^heres of sentiment that he 
touches the chords with the hand of a mastei'. From many 
passages in this volume we presume, and indeed hope, that 
Mr. M. has had real causes of grief, and that -he has not 
assumed a tone of melancholy, as he might a black coat, 
from an idea that it was fashionable and becoming. We per- 
ceive, with no small pleasure, that his heart is not insensible 
to religious sentiment : we hope that his religion is genuine, 
as well as warm, not a feeling merely, but a habit ; and that 
his fine talents are devoted to the service of Him 'who 
giveth the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.'" 

This hope a subsequent intimacy amply verified. A cor- 
respondence was soon opened between Daniel Parken, Esq., 
editor of the Eclectic, and Montgomery, and long before the 
two met there existed a dehghtful and intimate interchange 
of thought and feeling. 

Montgomery appears for a time contributor to the Review. 

Di*. Aikin, already so much interested in the rising fame 
of the unknown poet, was more than ever charmed with 
Tlie 'Wanderer of Switzerland ; and when his identity was 
fairly recognized, no warmer friend had he than Miss Lucy 
Aikin, the Doctor's gifted daughter, who did not hesitate 
to declare herself " delighted that the loved Alcaeus was at 
last found out." The Doctor thus wrote him : 

" Stoke Newington, January 29, 1S07. 
"Dear Sir, 

" Your last letter, relating . chiefly to the third edition 
of your poems, I did not feel that it required a particular 
answer; and Ijaving been n^uch occupied with the Athe- 



120 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

n£Bum, and other concerns, I was not disposed to write 
more than was necessary. The mterval of your correspond- 
ence now, however, seems so long, that I am impatient for 
its renewal ; and, besides, I owe you an acknowledgment 
for the lustre you have thrown upon our first number by 
your Molehill. It has, I assure you, been much admired, 
and been judged worthy of its author. My friend, Mr. 
Roscoe, told me he recognized the muse of Montgomery in 
the first stanza. I know not how to urge you for future 
contributions, since you ought to have in view a second 
volume of virgin pieces ; but whatever you may think fit to 
bestow on us will meet with a cordial welcome. 

" I know not how to condole with you on the increased 
occupation of your time, that the discovery of your merits 
by the world has brought upon you. If the effects are 
somewhat burthensome, the cause is such that your friends 
cannot lament it. I will hope, however, I shall not be a 
sufierer from the additional correspondents you are obliged 
to entertain, but that you will continue to favor me with 
those confidential displays of your mind which have been 
so delightful to me. 

" We often indulge ourselves with the vague expectation 
that you will sometime find the call of business or inclina- 
tion strong enough to induce you to visit London, notwith- 
standing all obstacles. I scarcely need to assure you that 
few circumstances would give me so much pleasure as the 
opportunity of forming a personal acquaintance with you. 
If you could be persuaded to become a guest in my house, 
you would find a whole family prepared to regard you rather 
as an old friend than a stranger. 

" Accept our united respects and kind wishes, and believe 
me, dear sir, Yours, most sincerely, 

"J, AlKlN." 



CRITITQUE OF "THE EDINBURGH." 121 

To i^revent any undue elation in tlie bosom of tlic grati- 
fied poet, the Edinburgh Review, the terror of authors, 
young and old, shook its paw in his face, with a threatening 
growl. " A third edition is too alarming to be passed over 
in silence," it declares ; " and though we are perfectly per- 
suaded that in less than three years nobody Avill know the 
name of The IVanderer of Switzerland, or any of the other 
poems in this collection, still we think ourselves called ou 
to interfere to i:)revent, as far as in us lies, the mischief that 
may arise from the intermediate jirevalence of so distressing 
an epidemic. It is hard to say Avhat numbers of ingenuous 
youth may be led to expose themselves in public, by the 
success of this performance, or what addition may be made 
in a few months to that great sinking-fund of bad taste, 
which is daily wearing down the debt which we have so 
long owed to the classical writers of antiquity. 

"After all, we believe it scarcely possible to sell three 
editions of a work absolutely without merit ; and Mr. Mont- 
gomery has the merit of smooth versification, blameless 
morality, and a sort of sickly affectation of delicacy and fine 
feelings, which is apt to impose on the amiable part of the 
young and the illiterate. The wonder with us is, how these 
qualities should still excite any portion of admiration ; for 
there is no mistake more gross, or more palpable, than that 
it requires any extraordinary talents to write tolerable verses 
upon ordinary subjects. On the contrary, we are ])ersuaded 
that this is an accomplishment which may be acquired more 
certainly and more speedily than most of those to which 
the studies of youth are directed, and in -svhich mere in- 
dustry will always be able to secure a certain degree of 
excellence. There are few young men who have the slight- 
est tincture of literary ambition who have not, at some time 
in their lives, indited middling verses ; and accordingly, in 
11 



122 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

the instructed classes of society, there is nothing more 
nauseated than middling poetry. The truth is, however, 
that the diligent readers of poetry in this country are by no 
means instructed. They consist chiefly of young, half-edu- 
cated women, sickly tradesmen, and enamored aj^prentices. 
To such persons the faculty of composing rhyme always ap- 
pears little less than miraculous, and if the verses be toler- 
ably melodious, and contain a sufficient quantity of those 
exaggerated phrases with which they have become familiar 
at the playhouse and the circulating hbrary, they have a 
fair chance of being extolled with unmeasured praises, till 
supplanted by some newer or more fashionable object of 
idolatry. Tliese are the true poetical consumers of a com- 
munity — the persons who take oiF editions, and create a 
demand for nonsense, which the improved ingenuity of the 
times can -with difficulty supply. It is in the increasing 
number and luxury of this class of readers, that we must 
seek for the solution of such a phenomenon as a third edi- 
tion of The Wanderer of Sioitzerla?icI, within six months 
from the appearance of the first. The perishable nature of 
the celebrity which is derived from this kind of patronage, 
may be accounted for as easily, from the character and con- 
dition of those who confer it. The girls grow up into 
women, and occupy themselves in suckling their children, 
or scolding their servants ; the tradesmen take to drinking 
or to honest industry ; and the lovers, when metamorphosed 
into husbands, lay aside their poetical favorites with their 
thin shoes and perfumed liandkerchiefs. All of them grow 
ashamed of their admiration in a reasonably short time, and 
no more think of imposing the taste than the dress of their 
youth upon a succeeding generation. 

" Mr. Montgomery is one of the most musical and melan- 
choly fine gentlemen we have lately descried on the lower 



SENSITIVENESS TO CRITICISM. 123 

slojies of Parnassus. lie is very weakly, very finical, and 
very affected. His affectations, too, are the most usual, and 
the most offensive of those that are commonly met with in 
the species to which he belongs. They are affectations of 
extreme tenderness and delicacy, and of great energy and 
enthusiasm. Whenever he does not whine he must rant. 
The scanty stream of his genius is never allowed to steal 
quietly along its channel, but it is either poured out in mel- 
ancholy tears, or thrown \ip to heaven in all the frothy 
magnificence of tiny jets and artificial commotions," 

Jhe caustic raillery of the Edinburgh, though often 
whetted against real merit and true genius, did, neverthe- 
less, a wholesome work for literature. Slow often in its 
discernments, overbearing in its temper, and rude in its on- 
slaughts, it provoked careful study, a more vigorous tone, 
and higher finish among the writers of that day. Real 
abihty it could crowd, but not crush ; and the lessons taught 
by its flagellations were sometimes those which laid the 
foundations for successful authorship and j^ermanent fame. 

Montgomery Avinced before its verdict, 

"The Edinburgh Review has, indeed, made me miser- 
able beyond anything that the malice or the tyranny of man 
had been able to inflict on my sensibility, or on my pride 
before," he writes to Parken, " All that I suffered from 
political persecution and personal animosity in the former 
l^art of my life, seemed manly and generous oiiposition in 
comparison with the cowardly, yet audacious malignity of 
this critic, who took advantage of the eminence on which 
he was placed, beyond the reach of retaliation, to curse me 
like Shimei, However, be it as it may, and much as I have 
suffered from it both in health and mind, I would rather be 
the object than the author of such outrageous abuse. Your 
letter foimd me in the de^^th of despondency, in which that 



124 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

critique, and anotlier, in reality, far more formidable event, 
which was made known to me on the same day, had 
pk^nged me. A rival newspaper was annomiced in Shef- 
field, and I foreboded little less than ntter ruhi to mine 
from my knowledge of the persons concerned in it. In 
that situation of mind, in the very week in which I M^as 
thus assailed, both in fame and fortune, by unn\erciful and 
interested men, I wrote, from the binding pledge which I 
had given you, the remarks on Walter Scott's last poems. 
I scarcely recollect what I said of them, for I have never 
yet ventured to revise my rough copies, and during t-he 
three or four days in Avhich I composed them, by stratagem 
as it were — stealing a moment or a minute at a time, as I 
could snatch them from the gloom of my mind, and the 
distraction of my thoughts. This I know well, that, racked 
and broken as I was myself on the wheel of the Scotch in- 
quisitors, I showed all the mercy that my conscience would 
permit towards him. I did him all the justice that I could, 
though I could not help feeling some of the weakness and 
wickedness of envy towards him, as he had been the fa- 
vorite, and, I understand, the associate of my butchers; 
none of that envy, however, I hope is betrayed in my re- 
view. I tried with all my might to hide the cloven foot ; 
if I have shown it, chop it off, for I would rather limp on a 
wooden leg than be seen dancing with it. When your 
letter came, as I said before, I was very unhappy ; it was 
like a rainbow to my hopes, which had sickened in the 
deferred expectation of hearing from you soon afler the re- 
ceipt of my review of Scott's ' Ballads.' Since that time I 
have been slowly recovering my composure. The poison- 
tree of Edinburgh has not killed me this time with its pesti- 
lential influence, nor shMl I be immediately reduced to 
beggary by my rival newsmonger." 



A KIVAL NEWSPAPER. 125 

Ah, the rubs and chances of fortune. "The web of our 
life is of a mhigled yarn, good and ill together." We are 
glad to see the poet has stuff in him not easily put down. 
A frost has indeed come upon his " blushing honors," but 
not a killing one. 

" I thank you," he says, to a friend, " for your consola- 
tions on my escajDe, with barely my life in my hand, from 
the tomahawks of the northern banditti. I yet feel the 
venom on my cheek — this is downright pride, I know. If 
I had been a thousandth part as humble in heart as I i^re- 
tend to be, I should scarcely have felt the insect — at least 
it would have been as little as the injury, which I trust has 
not been very great. 

" If I am getting neither fame or money, I have all the 
plague without the jirofit of them, for literary and pecuni- 
ary engagements continually j^ress and even harass me. t 
have hardly drawn one peaceful breath to-day ; and three 
proofs are now waiting at my elbow. I cannot go to Man- 
chester these — months ! — I won't say how many. 

" On Monday last, proposals were issued for publishing a 

new newspaper in Sheffield, by a person who formerly was 

in my office nearly nine years. My very bread and water 

are now precarious, and, unless I wrestle hard to keep them, 

the staff and the cup of life will be snatched from me by 

one who founds his expectations of success jirincipally, I 

am convinced, on my unpopularity and imbecility. This is 

dreadfully humiliating : I have been drowning, these twelve 

years, and just when I imagined I was getting my head 

above water, comes a hand and plunges me into the deep 

again ! The other misery that I fell into on the same day, 

is perhaps yet more mortifying ; I received the Edinburgh 

review of my poems." 

A fair picture of an author and editor behind the scenes. 
11* 



126 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Let nobody envy him, or ignorantly suppose, from the 
well-filled and easily read columns which issue from his 
work-shop, that his life is made "to ruu ever upon 
even ground." 

Another criticism of " The Edinbui-gh," a few months 
later, wounding as deeply, was less passively endured. The 
avenging i^en of Byron came to the rescue of suffering and 
smarting authorship ; and his " English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers" turned its weapons back upon itself with scath- 
ing power. Never was returned a smarter blow; never 
boxer had a more motley or ajiplauding ring. 

The 'Wanderer of Switzerland came over the water. 
Perhaps the same packet brought the weird " Thalaba," the 
last new novel of " The Great Unknown," as Scott incog, 
was then called, a song from Moore, and perhaps the famous 
sermon of Dr. Buchanan preached at Bristol, and entitled, 
" Star in East," which so kindled the fire of missionary zeal 
in the New England heart. 

A stranger, dating from " Rome, State of New York," 
wrote to him : — " Perhaps a complimcntaiy letter from the 
banks of the Mohawk is a novelty in England ; yet as I am 
one of your many admirers in these distant forests, I beg 
leave to address you, whom I am sure it will not disi^lease 
to be told that tears are shed in these wilds at the pathetic, 
soul-subduing songs of the imfortunate ' Wanderer.' The 
little village in Avhich I reside is not far removed from such 
savage scenes as you have described : 

" ' Realms of mountains, dark with woods, 

In Columbia's bosom lie : . . . 
There, in glens and caverns rude, 

Silent since the world began, 
Dwells the virgin Solitude, 

Unbetraycd by faithless man.* 



CRITIQUE ON MOORE'S POEMS. 127 

The Wanderer of Switzerland has, in deed, an unpar- 
alleled popularity in this country : three editions are nearly 
exhausted in the northern, and I know not what quantity 
have been printed in the southern States. It is m the hand 
of every person who has any pretension to taste." 

And as an evidence that the predictions of the "northern 
banditti" were not always made good by time, twenty 
years after its first appearance twelve thousand copies had 
been sold, netting four thousand dollars cash profits to its 
author, and its seventh edition was just then advertised by 
the pubUshers Longman & Co. 

Parken having engaged Montgomery for the Eclectic, 
he thus writes the editor, enclosmg a criticism upon the 
shameless productions of Thomas Little, the well known 
soubriquet of Moore : — 

"Sheffield, September. 1, 1806. 
"Dear Sir, 

"I have taken the earliest opportunity to return 
Thomas Moore's poems, with as fe\o remarks as I could 
possibly make on them, though you will probably think 
them too many ; but if you knew how much I have cur- 
tailed even what I had written, and how much more I have 
omitted to write at all, which occurred to my mind, and 
begged hard for admission as evidence against him, you 
would give me great credit for forbeai'ance. However, 
your discretion must determine how far this article must be 
further abridged. It has been the most difficult task which 
you have yet set me, for as I was restricted, and very justly 
too, from making extracts, I was obliged to confine myself 
to very general remarks, and to be as guarded as possible 
in the expression of them, not to provohe evil imaginations, 
while I was endeavoring to repress them. The subject is 



128 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

SO abominable that it cannot be touched without defilement : 
but it must he touched ; and this shameless publication can- 
not be sliglitly passed over by you (' Eclectic' Reviewers), 
as the defenders of that revelation which requii-es purity of 
heart and holiness in all manner of conversation. Besides, 
the work is of uncommon genius ; this cannot be denied ; 
nay, it must be conceded^ lest the world should say you 
have not the honesty 'to give the devil his due.' Under 
these considerations, I can only assure you that I have done 
my best — that is my worst — to condeimi this profligate 
volume according to tlie strictest justice, which would 
neither ask nor give one grain of allowance, for in this 
cause I felt it my duty neither to take nor grant any quai*- 
ter. I therefore endeavored to admit the full merit of the 
author's talents, while I did not spare one hair of his de- 
merits as a libertine m ^^I'inciple, and a deliberate seducer 
in practipe. I am so exceedingly depressed in spirit to-day, 
that I can hardly think straightforward, much less write 
cleai'ly. 

" I am, very truly, your obliged friend and servant, 

" J. MoNTGOilERY." 

The January number of the Eclectic contained Mont- 
gomery's critique on Wordsworth's "Lyrical Ballads," 
&c.,* concerning Avhich he had thus Avritten to the editor 
three months jDreviously : — 

" I am almost sure that you and I differ very widely in 
our opinions concerning Wordsworth's talents, and per- 
haps more concerning his performances. My free, sin- 
cere, and utterly unbiassed sentiments I send you, not at 
all dreading your displeasure, because I hold a poet's 
merits in higher estimation than you do. I know that 
* Eclectic Review, vol. iv., p. 35. 



CRITIQUE ON "LYRICAL BALLADS." 129 

"wliGn you engage me to review anj work, it is my own 
juclgrueiit that you require me to exercise, and you do 
not expect that it shall always be in consonance with 
yours. I feel exceedmg great reluctance to censure the 
works of a man of high and noble genius, however un- 
worthy of him, because I am aware that the vivid imagina- 
tion of poets, which I doubt not is always accompanied 
with equal self-complacency, often seduces them mto errors 
which they know not to be such, but mistake them for 
excellencies of the purest order, when they are nothing 
but delirious wanderings from truth and nature. Yet it is 
hard to punish them for such follies, as if they had been 
guilty of crimes ; lenity is not the character of any exist- 
ing Review, nor are any of our periodical critics too lavish 
of praise. I hope that your readers will find as much 
rigor of censure in this article as wiU reconcile them to 
the warmth of commendation which I have most honestly 
and heartily bestowed on Wordsworth's undeniable merits. 
The cry is up ; and it is the fashion to yelp him down. I 
belong not to the pack, nor will I wag my tongue or my 
tail, on any occasion, to please the multitude. I am con- 
scious of no personal partiality to prejudice me in favor 
of Wordsworth. I am sure the poetry of two men can- 
not differ much more widely than his does from mine. I 
hate his baldness and vulgarity of phrase, and I doubt not 
he equally detests the splendor and foppery of mine ; but 
I feel the pulse of poetry beating through every vein of 
thought in all his compositions, even in his most pitiful, 
puerile, and affected pieces. To yoii I need not add that 
his frigid mention of my name in his first note has not 
influenced me to speak more favorably of him than I 
otherwise would have done. It is a proud and almost 
contemptuous notice which he has taken of me and my 



130 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

'Daisy' (I won't change mine for his three daisies)^ and 
■vras moi'e calculated to mortify and provoke a jealous 
temper, than to soothe and disarm one who had the power 
and the opportunity to humble a rival in the eye of the 
public. No ! I am persuaded in my own mind, that I 
have done him justice to the best of my knowledge. I 
only regret that you will probably derive less satisfaction 
from the perusal of this essay than you might have done 
had our opinions been in perfect harmony. You must 
not be alarmed at the apparent length ; for, though the 
first four pages are closely written, the following ones are 
loose, and the whole will make no more, I believe, than 
eight of yours at the most. I confess that I tore myself 
from i^oetry to criticism, on this occasion, with excessive 
reluctance. My mind was so alive with images and senti- 
ments connected with my West Indian poem, that I did 
violence to my most favorite feelings to undertake this 
review. Nobody but you, and my own bmding promise, 
could have moved me." 

To his friend Parken he wi'ites, October 1, 1806 : 
" Take the worst news I have to tell you. I have not 
written a line about Wool's Warton, but indeed I will do 
my very best to send you the article in ten days, so that, 
instead of Monday next, do not expect it before Monday 
se'nnight. If you can forgive this, read forward ; if not, 
throw this letter into the fire, and ivrite me as scolding an 
answer as you can, and take care that it be charged with 
treble postage ; I will not lose it at the post-ofiice, if it be 
an angry one, and be less than three full sheets. Now I 
hold you at defiance ; you will cool before you have writ- 
ten one page of hard words against so poor an oflfender as 
I am, and the moment you cool, I shall be pardoned, and 
received into more gracious favor than ever. Now, as I 



LETTER TO PARKEN. 131 

see you arc a much more reasonable being than you -were 
a dozen lines ago, hear my apology, — may you never feel 
it ! During the whole of the last month I have been sink- 
ing in despondency, till I have hardly had the spirit to 
languish through my ordinary drudgery of business, and 
much less to listen to Wool's dull narrative and stupid 
criticism, which are both so wretchedly neutral, that they 
can no more provoke than they can delight me ; and, un- 
less I am in a rapture or in a rage, I can find neither 
thoughts nor language to employ for or against an author. 
I do not intend to tell the public how very humbly I think 
of this huge quarto, which is as flat and as unmeaning to 
me as a grave-stone wuth no other inscription than, ' Here 
lies Joseph Warton, D.D.' 

" I cannot engage to furnish you with any remarks on 
this work in less time than I have named, because I have 
to go into Derbyshire at the beginning of next week, which 
will take me away for several days. But I will endeavor 
to make you amends in the course of the month by send- 
ing you a few pages on the ' Life of Colonel Hutchinson,' 
which fell like a judgment upon me this afternoon for not 
having despatched Warton sooner : I never received a 
parcel before from you that was only half welcome ; but 
this was indeed so, because it reminded me of my trans- 
gression, and inflicted a new penance on me, at a tim^ 
when I am very ill qualified to bear any of ' the miseries 
of human life.' I will send you one of my newspapers by 
post to-morrow. You will find on the last page of it a 
few most melancholy stanzas, breathed, or rather groaned 
out (in the language of Timothy Testy, — that is, yon, 
when you read this letter, — and Samuel Sensitive, — that 
is, 7ne, while I am writing it) in the bitterness almost of 
despair, and which have more truth than poetry in them. 



1.32 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

There are some subjects on which my mind is continually 
rolling, that forbid me ever to liope for peace on earth, 
because I am tempted in my gloomy fits to think that I 
can never find rest for my soul even in the consolations 
of the gospel, for I can never forget its threatenings : even 
on Mount Calvary I hear the thunders of Sinai. But I 
"will not wound your heart on this tremendous theme. By 
the by, have you seen the Critical Review of August ? 
It i^raises my little volume most unmercifully ; but it has 
found out that I am a Jacobin in politics, and a fanatic in 
religion. As for the first accusation, I know how to de- 
si^ise it ; and for the second, tlie reproach of the Cross, 
would to God that I were worthy of it ! — I am glad you 
think highly of ' Home.' You are right respecting the 
disposition to depreciate the merits of living poets. I 
don't choose to refer to my volume here, but for that very 
reason, ought not the Eclectic Review to set an example 
of independent judgment, and boldly venture to jiraise 
living merit, and to lead 2)ublic opinion, not to sneak after 
it, as most of our reviewers do; who wait to hear what 
the world has to say about any new author, in whom they 
suspect there may be merit, though they dare not declare 
it, at the peril of all their critical reputation, till every- 
body else has acknowledged it. My observations on 
' Home' were written without seeing a remark of any- 
body else's upon it, and w^ithout being acquainted with a 
human being but myself who had read it. This, my dear 
sir, you may rely upon, that I shall always write w??/ own 
judgment, whether it be worth your adoption or no ; but 
I shall be always subject to your curtailments, nay even 
your utter rejection, when you totally disapprove, so long 
as I can have confidence in the unbiassed mdependcnce of 
your own judgment ; for I never will nor can submit to 



SCOTT AND SOUTHEY. 133 

write to the prejudices or the private interests of any- 
party whatever. Your kind information respecting the 
success of ray critique on Dermody gives me a httle 
encouragement ; hut j^ray hide my name in the most secret 
part of your breast, where you conceal your best deeds 
from every human eye. I have scribbled this as hastily 
as possible, to put you in and out of pain respecting 
Wool's AVarton." 

Montgoinery has just received from London the " Lay 
of the Last Minstrel," and " Marmion." 

" Walter Scott is an admirable writer," he says, " is a 
poet sui generis; but, Avhenever he steps on modern 
ground, he is only one of the weakest of us ; in his magic 
circle he is inunitable — out of it, a gentleman who writes 
with ease." 

Scott, at this time, was connected with the Edinburgh 
Heview, and made generous overtures to enlist Southey 
in its service. Southey declined. "The objections which 
weigh with me against bearing any part in this journal are 
these," he replies ; " I have scarcely an opmion in common 
with it upon any subject. My feelings are still less in 
unison with Jeffrey than my opinions. On subjects of 
moral and political imj)ortance, no man is more apt to 
speak in the very gall of bitterness than I am, and this 
habit is likely to go with me to the grave ; but that sort 
of bitterness in which he indulges, which tends directly to 
wound a man in his feelings, and injure him in his fame 
and fortune (Montgomery is a case in j^oint) appears to me 
utterly inexcusable. The emolument to be derived from 
writing at ten guineas a sheet, Scotch measure, instead of 
seven pounds, annual, would be considerable ; the pecu- 
niary advantage, resulting from the different manner in 
which my future works would be handled, still more so. 
12 



134 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

But my moral feelings must not be compromised. To 
Jeffrey, as an individual, I shall ever be ready to show 
every kind of individual courtesy ; but of Judge Jeffrey 
of the Edinburgh Review I must ever think and speak as 
of a bad j^olitician, a worse moralist, and a critic, in matters 
of taste, equally incompetent and unjust." 

Ebenezer Elliott, just shaking his shaggy locks, and 
kindling at " man's inhumanity to man," writes to the Bard 
of Keswick for counsel how to bring his " first fruits" be- 
fore the public. AYe hope his reply will not be considered 
an interloper in our pages. It may serve to answer 
similar questions not imfrequently put in our time. "A 
recommendation to the booksellei's to look at a manu- 
script is of no use whatever," Avrites Southey to the young 
Corn-law Rhymer, " In the way of business they glance 
at everything Avhich is offered them, and no persons know 
better what is likely to answer their purpose. Poetry 
is the worst article in the market : out of fifty volumes, 
which may be published in the course of a year, not five 
pay the expense of publication ; and this is a piece of 
knowledge which authors in general purchase dearly, for, 
in most cases, these volumes are printed at their o^vn risk. 

" From the specimen of your productions now in my 
writing-desk, I have no doubt you possess the feeling of a 
poet, and may distinguish yourself; but I am sure prema- 
ture publication would eventually discourage you. You 
liave an exami^le in Kirke White ; liis ' Clifton Green' sold 
only to the extent of the subscriptions he obtained for it ; 
and tlie treatment "which it experienced drove him, by his 
own account, almost to madness. My advice to you is, to 
go on improving yourself, without hazarding anything; 
you cannot practice Avithout improvement. Feel your 
way before the public, as Montgomery did. lie sent his 



SOUTIIEY'S ADVICE TO ELLIOTT 135 

verses to the ne-\vspapers, and, when they were copied 
from one to another, it was a sure sign they had suc- 
ceeded. He then communicated them, as they were 
copied from the papers, to the Poetical Register ; the 
Reviews selected them for praise ; and thus, when he 
published them in a collected form, he did nothing more 
than claim, in his own character, the praise which had 
been bestowed upon him under a fictitious name. Try the 
newspapers ; send what you think one of your best short 
poems to the Courier or Globe. If it is inserted, send 
others, with any imaginary signature. If they j^lease 
nobody, and nobody notices them with praise, nobody will 
with censure, and you will escape all criticism. If, on the 
contrary, they attract attention, the editor will be glad to 
pay you for more — and they still remain your property, 
to be collected and reprinted in whatever manner you may 
think best hereafter." 



CHAPTEH IX. 

THE CHIMXEY-SWEEPS — LOTTERIES — VISIT TO LONDON — SLAVE-TRADE 
— "the west indies" — " THE WOULD BEFORE THE FLOOD" — VISIT 
FROM HIS EROTHEIl ROBERT — HART'S-HEAD — THE POET'S HOME — • 
PARKEN"s MATRIMONIAL ADVICE — CRITICISMS — LETTERS FROM SOU- 
they and ROSCOE. 

If the autlior and the editor had his trials, they are 
tempered and more easily borne by seeking out and sympa- 
thizing with those who carried heavier burdens than his 
own. 

The suffei-ings of a species of child labor, — chimney- 
sweeping, — hardly known to the children of the present 
day, excejjt perhaps through a stray old copy of " London 
Cries," are enlisting the humane exertions of Montgomery 
and Mr. Roberts. 

London was already bestirring herself against the inhu- 
manities of this villainous trade, " which," says one, " can- 
not be taught without cruelty, learnt without suffering, or 
practised without peril to the lives and limbs of the number- 
less poor children engaged in it." 

In the summer of 1807, an association was formed in 
Sheffield for bettering their condition, and for devising 
more suitable machines for chimney-cleanmg, than the 
"bones and muscles of infants." 

An exponent of this interest appeared in the shape of a 



LOTTERIES. 137 

dinner given on Easter Monday to these children, which, 
annually repeated, served to keep alive in the public mind 
the syinj)athy already awakened in their behalf. 

It was a favorite anniversary of the poet, who never failed 
to aid in furnishing the table from his pockets, and, if possi- 
ble, with his presence ; while the Iris perseveringly did its 
part to bring the odium of public sentiment against this 
apprenticeship, with reference to its entire extinction by an 
act of Parliament. 

Another craft, also, began to arrest the serious attention 
of Montgomery, whose gainfulness to himself does not seem 
to have closed his eyes to its moral vitiations. 

On establishing the Iris^ in 1794, at the old stand of the 
Kegister, the young editor became the natural inheritor of 
its time-honored customs. One of these was the sale of 
lottery tickets; his sheet, of course, in common with all 
other papers of the realm, inserting lottery advertisements. 

This sale was continued at the Hart's-head for several 
years; and a £20,000 jDrize having once been drawn 
through this office, it acquired the unenviable notoriety of 
" the lucky office," which brought an extraordinary patron- 
age to its doors. 

" Familiarity with some kinds of sin deadens the con- 
sciousness of it ; but this was not my case in reference to 
the state lottery," says the clear-sighted editor ; " it was 
familiarity with it which convinced me that I was dealing 
in deceptive wares. I was occasionally surprised at the 
different kinds of money brought to me by persons of the 
humbler class — hoarded guineas, old crowns, half crowns, 
and fine impressions of smaller silver coins, at a time wdien 
bank-paper, Spanish dollars, and tokens of inferior standard, 
issued by private individuals and companies, formed a kind 
of mob-currency throughout the realm. These were ven- 
12* 



138 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

tured ' for the sake of luck,' in many instances by poor 
women, who had inherited them from their parents, re- 
ceived them as birth or wedding-day gifts, saved them for 
tlieir children's thrift-pots, or laid them up against a rainy 
day or sickness. "With these they came to buy hope, 
and I sold them disappomtme7it ! It was this thought, 
l^assing through my mind Hke a flash of lightning, and 
leaving an indelible impression there, which decided a long- 
meditated, but often procrastinated purpose ; and I said 
to myself at length, ' I will give up this trafiic of delu- 
sion.' I did so, and from that moment never sold another 
share." 

In 1809, Montgomery paid a visit to London, where for 
the first time, after a correspondence of two years, he met 
Parken. Lucy Aikin and her father invited him to the 
hospitalities of Stoke Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld, 
dwelUng on the same green, came to bid him welcome. 

At Woolwich, eight miles east of London, down the 
Thames, his younger brother Robert lived, a flourishing 
grocer, with wife and children. Here, also. Dr. Olinthus 
Gregory resided, the intimate friend of Robert Hall, best 
known in this country through his " Evidences of Christi- 
anity." Montgomery was invited to his house, and a cor- 
dial regard, with an occasional correspondence, seems to 
have sprung up between them. 

To Merton, a village in Surrey, seven miles south-Avcst of 
the metropolis, he accompanied Parken, on a visit to Basil 
Montague, whose wife was an early friend. Here, in a 
pleasant gathering of congenial spirits, he met the famous 
Dr. Parr, some of whose habits one had need be very 
much his friend, indeed, to pardon and to bear with :— smok- 
ing, for instance, in the drawing-room ; for no sooner was 
he seated in the elegant apartment than his pipe was 



LETTER FROM COLERIDGE I39 

brought, and fair hands were in requisition with tobacco 
and fire. As the smoke curled around the canonicals of the 
Doctor, " and is Dr. Parr," pertinently mused Montgomery 
to himself, " really so great a man, that it is immaterial 
Avhoever else be annoyed, so that his comfort is secured ? 
Or is he so little a man, that he cannot, even under such 
circumstances as these, forego the usual indulgence of liis 
fondness for smoking ?" 

Coleridge, now residing at Grasmere, was about issuing 
the " Friend," the first number of which appeared in June, 
1809, and he thus bespeaks the interest of Montgomery : — 

"Dear Sir, 

" In desiring a small packet of these prospectuses to 
be sent to you from Leeds, I have i:)resumed less on myself 
than on our common friend, Mrs. Montague ; but, believe 
me, by more than by either I have been encouraged by my 
love and admiration of your Avorks, and my unfeigned 
affectionate esteem of Avhat I have been so often and so 
eloquently told by Mrs. M. of your life and character. Con- 
scious how very glad I should be to serve you in anything, 
I apply with less discomfort to you in behalf of my own 
concerns. What I Avish is simiDly to have the prospectuses 
placed and disposed among such places and persons as may 
bring the Avork to the notice of those Avhose moi'al and in- 
tellectual habits may render them desirous to become sub- 
scribers. I knoAv your aA'ocations, and dare not therefore 
ask you for an occasional contribution. I have received 
promises of support from some respectable writers, and, for 
my OAA-n part, am prepared to play ofi" my whole power of 
acquirements, such as they are, in this work, as from the 
main pipe of the fountain. 

" If choice or chance should lead you this way, you wiU 



140 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

find both here and at Greta Hall, Keswick, house-room and 
heart-room ; for I can add Robert Southey's and William 
Wordsworth's names to my own, when I declare myself 
with affectionate respect, 

"Dear sir, yom-s sincerely, 

" S. T. Coleridge." 

Another poem is already on the stocks, on a subject hav- 
ing the hearty co-operation of his principles and affections. 
Montgomery was a thorough abolitionist — a word less 
startling to British ears than to ours, perhaps. 

' Referring to the rejection of a " Bill for the Gradual Abo- 
lition of Negro Slavery" by the House of Commons, a few 
years before, the Iris thus unmistakably shows its colors : — 
^^ There is a fashio)i in feelin</. This infamous traffic in 
the unmarketable commodity of God's creatures — for the 
Almighty never alienated a tittle of his right in a single 
hximan being, and who shall dare to dispossess him of it? — 
we say this infimous traffic, which once excited almost imi- 
versal and unqualified abhorrence in this country, seems 
now to have softened into a common-place siibject, which 
we can contemplate with as much composure as the diviners 
of old could j)ore over the palpitating entrails of animals 
ripped open to discover the secrets of futurity. The 
plagues of Egypt were the first signal and exemj^lary 
punishment inflicted by the violated majesty of heaven on 
slave-traders in the infancy of the world. The jDlagues of 
St. Domingo are only the beginning of sorrows in the West 
Indies — that grave of Europe and Africa! — where slaves 
and their tyrants indiscriminately, rapidly, and prematurely 
descend to the dust ; where the snow of age is almost as 
rarely seen on the head of man as the snow of winter on the 
tops of the mountains." 



THE SLAVE-TRADE. 141 

" We strongly recommend," he said, in the Iris of Sep- 
tember, 1805, "the perusal of an article on our last page 
on the slave-trade. The atrocities there recorded are not 
the ghosts of antiquated murders that have mouldered out 
of memory. This blood that cries for vengeance has not 
lost its voice, — it has not lost its warmth ! It boils round 
the heart, it burns through the veins, while the reader 
alternately trembles with anger and melts with compassion 
at the crimes and the woes of his fellow-creatures. Fel- 
low-creatures ! Are slaves and slave-dealers our fellow- 
creatures ? To what wickedness, to what misery are we 
akin ! No ; — the sufferer is only our brother ; his lordly 
oppressor denies consanguinity with the slave ; be it so, for 
thereby he bastardizes himself; the negro is assuredly 
related to all the rest of the human race." 

The great conflict in England between the advocates of 
the slave-trade and the demands of Christian civilization 
is too well known to need recapitulation here. Headed 
by Wilberforce, the anti-slavery men of that day fought 
vahantly. Apathy, discouragement, defeat, desertion, 
never damped them ; often routed, they as often renewed 
the charge. The cause mdeed contained within itself the 
very elements of a conquering strength, — humanity and 
justice, the first principles of gospel legislation, and the 
Christian growth — and it rnust prevail. And no array 
of names, no perverted use of Scripture, no affluence of 
resources, no constitutional entrenchments, no timid alarm- 
cries, can long save slavery or the slave-trade in any coun- 
try from its final doom. The march of Christian civiliza- 
tion is on its track, to displace its rude labors and brute 
forces, by the discerning industry and moral sinew of free- 
born men and women. 

British pluck did prevail, and on the 25th of March, 



142 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

1807, the royal assent was given to an act passed by Par- 
liament for the abolishing of British trading in human 
beings. 

"The bill has passed and become a law," is the ex- 
ultant cry of the Iris. " Thus hath the glorious offspring 
of humanity, which for seventeen years has been passing 
through a ' burning fiery furnace,' heated into sevenfold 
fury by the worshippers of the ' golden image' set up by 
a greater than Nebuchadnezzar — by ' Mammon' in the 
West Indies ; — thus, we say, has this persecuted child of 
benevolence come out perfect and pure from the fire ; for 
the angel of mercy, Avho was seen walking with it in the 
flames, prevented them from kmdling upon it ; and in 
heaven's own ajipointed time, he has brought it forth 
unconsumed and vminjured, untainted and untouched." 

Accordingly he was prepared to give a cordial response 
to proposals soon after made to him. " Received a letter," 
he says, " from Mr. Bowyer, of Pail-Mall (to whom I was 
an entire stranger), announcing that he had projected a 
splended memorial of the recent triumph of justice and 
humanity, in the abolition of the slave-trade by an act of 
the British legislature, in a series of pictures, represent- 
ing the past sufferings and the anticipated blessings of the 
long-wronged and late-righted Africans, both in their own 
land and in the West Indies, The engravings from these 
designs were to be accompanied by a poem illustrative of 
the subject. This he very courteously requested me to 
contribute. Soon elated, as soon dej^ressed, I eagerly, yet 
tremblingly, undertook the commission ; for I could not 
help doubting the wisdom of Mr. Bowyer's choice of a poet 
after the judgment which had been passed upon my recent 
performances by the critical infallibilities of my own coun- 
try." The subject, however, his own soul was penetrated 



VISIT TO LONDON. 14'3 

with, and immediately he took up his pen. The task was 
soon completed. " Concerning my slave-trade i")oem," we 
find him writing to Aston, " I have only to tell you, that 
I heard a few days ago from Bowyer, who comi:)lains bit- 
terly of ungrateful and mercenary engravers, who have 
both his plates and him in their hands, and he can neither 
extricate the one nor the other : so that his work may be 
three months — or, if you like a round number better, six 
months — before it makes its appearance. This is very 
distressing for a poet, impatient to be born in a new shape; 
for if a poet lives in his works when he is dead, he lives 
much more in them while he is alive : in fact, he under- 
goes a regular metempsychosis from one form to another, 
through every piece that he Avrites ; the last being always 
the best in his esteem, as each body which the soul in- 
habits in the course of transmigration, whether it be an 
elephant or an ass, is in turn the dearest. . . . Of my 
visit to London I have talked and written so much that I 
am quite Avcary of it ; and if I were to attempt to enter- 
tain you with any account of it, I should be too dull to be 
endured. I saw Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld, Robert Bloom- 
field, and ought to have seen Thomas Campbell, but illness 
prevented him from meeting me according to the invitation 
of a common friend, and ho sent an apology as flattering, 
but not half so welcome, as his company would have been. 
I was introduced to so many other great and middling, 
and good and better sort of men, that I cannot now recol- 
lect half of those I saw, and of those that saw me, not the 
thousandth part — for in London one seems to live in the 
mouth of a bee-hive, where those that are crowding in and 
those that are pressing out pass over or under one another, 
on this side or that, just as there may be room or oppor- 
tunity. . . . This is London." 



]44 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Tlie letters of a, new correspondent we find now on liis 
table, William Roscoe, of Liverpool. One from him, at 
tills date, so fully answers onr own notions of a letter, that 
we give a jDaragraj^h of it for the benefit of our friends : — 

" There is a stupid old rule, that a man should not talk 
about himself; but I should be glad to know on what 
subject he can talk of Mhich he ought to know so much ; 
and I am sure that, whatever may be the case when he 
makes his appearance before the public, yet in the inter- 
course of private friendship the more he talks about him- 
self the better. On this account, I always prefer those 
letters of a friend which contain neither articles of intel- 
ligence nor abstract dissertations. The head speaketh to 
the head, and the heart to the heart ; and I think it a sin 
to convert a letter into either a gazette or a sermon. 
Allow me, therefore, to say, that in you I have met with a 
corresiiondent according to my own mind, who writes as 
he thinks, and forgets, for a moment, that there are other 
persons in the world besides his friend and himself If, 
whenever you find yourself disposed towards it, you will 
take up your pen, and give your thoughts freely as they 
rise, you may rest assured that I shall not only receive 
them with real pleasure, but endeavor to make you the 
best return in my power." 

We take an extract from Montgomery's reply, frank and 
free as the poet could be : — 

" "When I wrote last I was so tired out with Mr. Bow- 
yer's procrastination in bringing forward his pompous 
volume on the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, that I had 
determined to put ofi" the small edition of my poems on 
that subject sine die ; and, instead of bringing it out as a 
rider to Mr. Bowyer's book, I meant to publish the piece 



LETTER TO ROSCOE. 145 

wliicli I mentioned in my last as having occupied, and 
indeed almost exhausted, my mind, during the latter half 
of last year. The instant I have finished a new poem I 
"wish all the world to see it; in the joy of its birth I forget 
all the anguish it cost me, and only anticipate the renown 
it shall bring me for ages to come ! When I wrote last 
I Avas in my first love with this fairest oftspring of my 
imagination, and which had given more pain than any of 
its elder brethren. I therefore wrote too passionately 
concerning it, and have probably excited a hope in your 
breast of merit which you can never meet with in any 
work of mine. Be this as it may, my own transports soon 
subsided, and yielded to fears, of such foreboding and 
appalling import, that my heart sunk imder them; and 
though I had arranged Avith Messrs. Longman for the 
early appearance of this paragon of poetry, I retreated, 
even after the manuscript was sent to London. I have 
breathed more freely ever since, though the recollection 
how nearly my rashness had brought my reputation to a 
stake at which it Avould have inevitably been burnt to 
ashes, and scattered on the Avinds, makes me shudder, 
even in the conscious security of being still in manuscript, 
out of Avhich I shall certainly not creep for ten or twelve 
months to come. Therefore, Avith all its sins upon its head 
(which my present terrors may, after all, magnify as much 
beyond the truth, as my former fondness exalted its 
merits), you shall see it. I therefore write now to re- 
quest you to inform me, at your own convenience, hoAV I 
may send the copy to you to secure its safe delivery. The 
MS. Avill be in the hands either of my bookseller, or some 
friend in London, till the latter end of March. As I have 
neither room nor time at present to say more concerning 
it, I shall defer any hints that may be necessary to preju- 
13 



146 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

dice you in its favor, before you begin the perusal of this 
wild oflspring of my muse. I won't attempt to bias your 
judgment, but I toill try to bribe your heart before you 
take the critic's chair. With respectful remembrance to 
all your family, 

" I am truly, your obliged friend, 

" J. Montgomery. 

" "William Eoscoe, Esq., Allerton Ilall, near Liverpool." 

Bowyer's work was at last issued. Its long delay, the 
failure of many promised contributions, and its high price, 
operated unfavorably on the sale, which was comparatively 
limited. 

Montgomery's portion of it was afterwards issued, with 
a few shorter poems, in a small volume, m the spring of 
1810; and in this form The West Indies became exten- 
sively read. 

Embodying, as it did, the national sympathies of a people 
in its unanimous verdict against a national sin, it could 
hardly fail of being eloquent. The very subject disarmed 
criticism, and won for it a place in every English home. 

The Negro deeming 

" his own land of every land the pride, 

Beloved of heaven o'er all the world beside ; 
His home the spot of earth supremely blest, 
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest;" 
Africa, 

" Basldng in all the splendors of a solar zone ;" 

the Trade, Avhich had depopulated her, and 

" o'er the Atlantic waves 

For guilty ages rolled the tide of slaves : 
A tide that knew no fell, no turn, no rest, 
Constant as day and night from east to west; 



"THE WEST INDIES." 147 

Still widening, deepening, swelling in its course 
With boundless ruin and resistless force ;" 

the Champions who stood 

"In this wide breach of violated laws;" 

" When Pitt, supreme among the senate, rose, 
The Negro's friend among the Negro's foes j 

" When Fox, all eloquent for freedom, stood, 
With speech resistless as the voice of blood ; 

" With Wilberforce, the minister of grace, 
The new Las Casas of a ruined race;" 

Britannia, confessing the nation's claim, and turnmg to her 
dusky sister, 

" ' All hail !' exclaimed the empress of the sea, 
' Tliy chains are broken, Africa, be free ;" 

all form a vivid panorama of some of the foulest and noblest 
doings in the chronicles of a Christian nation, 

" The subject, which had become antiquated by frequent, 
minute, and disgusting exposure, afforded no opportunity 
to awaken, suspend, and delight curiosity, by a subtle and 
surprising development of plot," says the author, in a brief 
preface ; a defect which, however it may otherwise be ac- 
counted for in the present case, existed in the poet himself, 
for Montgomery possessed none of the dramatic force of 
" sweet sui-prises." 

" That trade is at length aboUshed. May its memory be 
immortal, that henceforth it may be known only hy its 
memory!" are his closing words — an ejaculation whose 
significance has not altogether passed away. 



148 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Another poem, just completed, he sent to Mr. Roscoe for 
criticism. On its return, he thus deUghtfully opens his 
heart to his critic : — 

"Sheffield, Ju]7 23, 1810. 
" Dear Sir, 

" The World before the Flood arrived safely this morn- 
ing. Once more I thank you for your kind and valuable 
strictures ujjon it, of which I hope to profit some time 
or other, but when I know not. I must lie fallow a little 
longer ; this last crop has exhausted me. Besides, I am 
not so impatient now to be immortal at once as I was when 
I was at school, and confidently hoped to transcend all my 
poetical forerunners in every species of excellence. I will 
therefore quietly wait a little longer to watch the progress 
of my West Indies, and other smaller poems, just pub- 
hshed, which I have seen for the first time in their diminu- 
tive form to-day. I enclose two copies, thinking, from your 
exceedingly friendly disposition towards my 2^^'ovlncial 
muse, that you will be jjleased to see her new oftspring as 
early as possible. After all, there really is a gratification 
(I don't care Avhether it be a rational one or no) in seeing 
anything quite neio, and before every vulgar eye has gazed 
on it, or, which is more likely in the present instance, has 
overlooked it. Some of these little pieces you may recol- 
lect having read in the Athenaeum. Others have never ap- 
peared in print, and have all their dew and fragrancy about 
them now, in the very dawn of their day, — a little day 
perhaps ; but a few eyes will look with delight upon them, 
before the sun withers, or the wind scatters, or the hand of 
oblivion plucks them, and casts them away for ever. Yet 
icho w^ould rear flowers of poesy for such a fate ? Thou- 
sands do it, but does 07ie intend it ? I could not write at 



VISIT FROM HIS BROTHER ROBERT. 149 

all, if there wei'e not in my breast a "O'isb, so earnest and 
so strong, that I often mistake it for a hojie after immor- 
taUty. This dear, delightful self-delusion soothes me imder 
every discouragement, and cheers me under every neglect ! 
Yet what is it ? I know not ; and if I did know, the charm 
might be broken : I might desire it no longer. Nothing 
within our reach appears so precious as that which is just 
beyond our reach, but which we may yet touch, and by 
touching only prove that we cannot grasp it, like a ball sus- 
pended by a single hair, I believe I understand this figure, 
probably you do not ; I have no time to explain it, for 
which I am glad, lest I should make nonsense of it." 

A visit from his brother Robert, reviving " the sweet 
sense of kindred " in his bosom, seems to have afforded the 
poet and editor a pleasing relaxation from the tasks of the 
quill. 

" Your visit," he writes him, on his return, " I assure you 
has drawn yet closer the bonds of brotherly kindness that 
always united my heart to yours ; but which, from the long 
and wide separation that circumstances beyond our power 
have made between us, has not been so renewed and 
strengthened from time to time as it would have been, had 
we lived nearer to one another. But the farther we have 
been removed, I have found the dearer we were when we 
met ; and I trust that, in future, if we are spared a few 
years longer, we shall oftener see each other's face, and feel 
each other's love expressed in those sweet words and deeds 
which can neither be written nor performed at a distance, 
and which the heart acknowledges with secret gratitude 
and delight." 

Another letter, written a few months after, reveals the 
yearnings of a Christian brother's heart : — 
13* 



150 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

"Sheffield, December 13, 1811. 
" My Dear Robert, 

..." Many, many times have I lived over again in 
my thoughts the days of yom* last visit to Sheffield, during 
which I enjoyed more of your company than I had done at 
any period during the last twenty years, and, of conse- 
quence, I had more opportunity of looking into your heart, 
and observing its most secret and sacred emotions; not 
that I Avas a spy upon my brother's conduct, or laid a single 
snare to entrap him in his speech. No ; I had no occasion 
to employ craft or stratagem of any kind to discover aU 
that I wished to know, and all that I had a right to know, 
of your feelings, sentiments, and disposition. Whatever I 
found in you, my dear Robert, be assured that I loved and 
resjsected you more, the more I became acquainted with 
you. On my part, I can conscientiously declare that I en- 
deavored to appear before you without any disguise, either 
in my conduct or my conversation ; in sincerity and truth I 
wished to be that, and that only, in your esteem, -which my 
heart testified I was in reality, and which, I trust, I shall 
ever remain, your affectionate brother, and your friend 

indeed Do write soon, and let me know fully and 

trul}^ how you are ; I am not afraid of jonv using deceit 
towards me on any other subject but this; I therefore 
charge you, as you love me, and more than this, as you 
love your family, that you always tell me candidly how you 
are aifected in this most serious concern of the poor transi- 
tory life which you are leading in tliis vain world of trial 
and suffering, and danger and death. Here, too, let me 
entreat you to ' remember in this your day the things that 
belong to your peace ; ' and O may our Saviour never have 
cause to weep over you and me, as he once did over Jeru- 
salem, and say that 'those things' which we rejected while 



LETTER TO HIS BROTHER ROBERT. 151 

they were oiFered to iis, are ' for ever hidden from our 
eyes ! ' The feehngs, deep and awful, which this retiection 
has awakened, naturally lead me to mention my visit to 
Ocbrook, about the middle of Octohei-, I met Ignatius and 
Agnes at Matlock, where they had been a short time for the 
benefit of the waters, poor Ignatius being very weak, as, 
indeed, you saw when you called on him on your return, 
lie looked pale and thin, but in other respects little changed 
since I saw him six years before. He was languid, but 
there was a meekness, a heavenly-mindedness in his manner 
and in his looks, that rendered him inexpressibly interesting 
to me. Agnes, whom I then saw for the first time since we 
were children at Fulneck, appeared much healthier and 
stronger than I expected. We were soon brother and 
sister, you may be sure, and I was charmed with her in 
every point of view in which I saw her at Matlock and at 
Ocbrook, as an affectionate helpmate to our dear infirm Ig- 
natius, an excellent nurse both to him and John James, and 
a most worthy and accomplished woman. She is, in my 
esteem, a guardian angel, sent by the express command of 
heaven to minister to poor Ignatius ; and I will add, he is 
worthy of her ; a kinder, humbler, nobler heart than his 
surely never warmed a human breast. As for John James, 
he is an armful of roses, and his very first smile made me 
love him from my soul, but he did not make me forget 
Betsey, or Harriet — my Betsey and my Harriet, I ought 
to say ; no, he only reminded me more and more of them. . . 

"I am, very trul}^ your afiectionate brother, 

" J. MONTGOMEKY. 

" Mr. Robert ilonto'oniGry, Woolwich." 

Parken also visited SheflHeld. The duties of a host were 



152 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

most heartily and royally fulfilled, nobody can doubt, yet 
the guest ungratefully suggests an improvement in the 
poet's quarters. 

Let us look in. Ilis study we might naturally seek first. 

" In this room," says Montgomery, introducing us to it, 
" where some of my happiest pieces have been produced, 
those I mean which are most popular, all the prospect I 
have is a confined yard, where there are some miserable 
old walls and the backs of houses, which present to the eye 
neither beauty or variety, or anything to inspire a single 
thought, except about bricks, the corners of which have 
been chijiped oif by violence, or fretted away by the 
weather." 

But should not a poet's surroimdings be suggestive of 
all beautiful thoughts? "No," he answers; "as a gen- 
eral rule, Avhatever of poetry is to be derived from scenery, 
must be secured before we sit down to compose — the 
impressions must be made already, and the mind must be 
abstracted from surrounding objects. It will not do to 
be expatiating abroad in observation, when we should be 
at home in concentration of thought." 

Sisterly aifections are supplied by the three Miss Gales, 
and congenial society enough these must have been to 
occupy any barren gap in the poet's life. But Parken is 
not satisfied. Bachelordora finds no toleration with him. 
He is persuaded that Montgomery needs a dearer one, and 
delicately, but urgently, broaches the subject soon after 
his retui'n to London. " It is," he proceeds, " much easier 
to write one's feelings than to speak them ; and among the 
few subjects on which I could be happy to show you my 
whole heart, the most prominent is yourself. One of the 
topics, therefore, in which I am most interested is, you 
may be sure, that which most interests you. I presumed, 



"THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD." 153 

as far as I durst in your presence, but not quite so far as 
to express fully my conviction (derived from very sufficient 
sources) that your apprehensions of infelicity are totally 
unfounded ; that any one who was really worthy of you, 
would consider it only too much happiness to be united 
and devoted to you as a friend and a nurse ; and that such 
a imion would infallibly relieve the greater part of those 
very mfirmities, both mental and bodily, which apj^ear to 
you such formidable impediments. Be advised, my dear 
friend ; do not procrastinate : I still hope it is not too late, 
but that if you attempt you will succeed ; and then I am 
confident you will thank me as long as you live. How 
I should rejoice next summer to see a third added to our 
friendship, and that third — a female !" 

How the counsel was received we do not know ; no 
change disturbed the accustomed quiet of Hartshead, and 
anon the poet courted the Muse. The Wbi-ld before the 
Flood occupies his pen. Its Sunday morning origin is 
thus related : " During the delay of the publication of The 
West Indies, and Avhile in quest of a theme for a lead- 
ing essay to form, with many minor pieces, a new volume, 
he happened one Sunday morning, before starting to his 
usual place of worship, to be meditating on the history of 
Enoch and his relation to the antediluvians, as recorded 
in the fifth chapter of the book of Genesis, which he was 
reading; at the same time a well-known passage in the 
eleventh book of 'Paradise Lost,' in which Milton apphes 
the striking imagery connected with the Scripture account 
of the ascent of Elijah in a chariot of fire to the translation 
of Enoch, forcibly occurred to his recollection. This at 
once determined his choice." 

In a few months the plan thus suddenly conceived was 
diligently wrought mto a poem of five cantos. A copy 



154 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

was sent to Parken, with a request, that after having read 
it himself, he would give it to Longman for immediate 
publication. Parken carefully did his part, and so much 
liked it, as, Montgomery tells us, "to think it worth 
mending, and capable of being greatly mended, because 
the author had not done justice either to himself or the 
theme in so contracted a compass. Wherefore, with a 
courage and candor not often hazarded by one friend 
towards another, in an affair of peculiar dehcacy, where 
the most jealous of personal feelmgs must of necessity be 
wounded, how tenderly soever the sensitive operation may 
be performed, he addressed a brief but earnest letter to 
me, imploring permission to detain the manuscript a few 
days longer, before he consigned it to the booksellers for 
the press, and till the author himself liad given further con- 
sideration to the subject, with the view of bringing out 
its latent capabilities more effectually than had been at- 
tempted in the draft, or rather in the sketch which had 
been sent to him." 

The frank and sensitive poet confesses that for a moment 
the advice ruffled his feelings, and it took a five miles' 
walk to smooth them down. Air and exercise helped to 
good digestion, and he came back, " determined not to be 
outdone in magnanimity, but to return the friendship of 
his friend by mireservedly bowing to his judgment, and 
adopting his counsel." 

Wishing to bespeak more extended criticism, and per- 
haps to test the soundness of Park en's criticism, ho sub- 
mitted the manuscript to four other literary friends. Dr. 
Aikin, Dr. Gregory, Mr. Roscoe, and Mr. Pees, a partner 
of Longman, the publisher. The result was a careful 
revision of the poem in reference to greater unity and 
copiousness. 



A DEFENCE OF FICTION. 155 

Parken's letter on the use of fiction, in ansAver to the 
poet's scruijles regarding the web of his poem, is not de- 
void of interest : — 

"Cloisters, Temi'le, June 15, ISll. 

"My Very Deae Feiend, 

"The other subject of which I was to have written you 
by return of post was the doubt you seem to entertain of 
the moraUty of fiction. It chagrined and alarmed me a 
good deal, to think of your mind or your conscience being 
perplexed on a point of such vital importance to your 
present pursuits. A friend of mine, who is also a friend 
of Southey's, so far from admitting any such notion as 
yours, contends that poetry, considered as fiction, is the 
finest species of ethics ; and goes so far as to call religion 
the most perfect poetry, because it has aU the glory of 
fiction, and all the reality of fact. He insists upon it that 
poetry, Hke the other fine arts, is chiefly beneficial, because 
it supplies nobler images, and a higher standard of excel- 
lence, to the imagination than nature can furnish to the 
senses ; and elevates man to the loftiest j^itch he is capable 
of attaining, by pointing him to that which is beyond his 
reach. However this may be, I am sure there is no im- 
morality inherent in fictions, as such, which have no prac- 
tical tendency contrary to fact. I hope my metaphysics 
and morals are intelligible to you; I think they are to 
myself. In your poem there is no intention to deceive : 
there is no probability that any person wiU be deceived ; 
and if the whole world were to be deceived, not a single 
feehng would be excited or a single action performed 
which would not be sanctioned by enlarged views of our 
nature, or which would be in the smallest degree detri- 
mental to the happiness of a single individual. If I wanted 



156 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

proofs, I would only cite the apologues and parables of 
Scripture, some of wbich, if not all, are unquestionably 
fictitious. The use of fiction in literature appears to me 
exactly analogous to the conception of quantities in math- 
ematics, or, to come home to my own peculiar and favorite 
studies, to the statement of imaginary cases for the deter- 
mination of points iu law. Many cases may be imagined 
which probably never did occur in real life, but which 
might have occurred, may occur, and some time or other 
probably will. All the truth involved in the real case is 
equally involved iu the imaginary one ; and surely there 
is nothing very immoral or pernicious in getting instruc- 
tion before an event actually takes place, which would be 
sound and salutary afterwards. If there is any objection 
to the use of fiction in connection with facts of sacred 
history, in a poetical work, it must rest upon the extra- 
ordinary power of fascination and illusion which the 
highest order of poetry possesses. The popular creed 
with respect to the fall of man, the war of the angels, and 
the character of Satan, is probably derived at least as 
much from 'Paradise Lost,' as from the book of Genesis or 
Revelation. Hapj^ily there is but little variance between 
them, and as to what there is, a moment's reflection 
detects the illusion, and the Bible is always at hand to 
dispel it. May your poem do as much harm as Milton's 
in this way, and as much good, by grafting religious facts 
and principles on the pubUc mind ! The palm shall then 
be enlivened with your bays, and you shall cast both at 
the feet of the Redeemer, shouting Hosanna ! 

" I am most affectionately yours, 

"D. Paeken." 

Four cantos of the revised poem having been sent to 



LETTER FROM SOUTIIEY. 157 

Parken, he read them to a circle of literary friends, one 
of whom soou after wrote to the author, that Soutliey 
expressed his regret at learning he had chosen the heroic 
couplet — the least adapted, he thought, for a long poem, 
and especially such a poem. Blank verse, without com- 
parison, was recommended. 

Montgomery immediately submitted a portion of the 
manuscript to South ey, whose heart-revealing letter in 
return cannot fail of interest. 

"Keswicf, May Cth, 1811. 

" ]\Iy Deak jMoxtgomeut, 

" Your Death of Adcan is what it should be ; and 
the apparition at the close brings with it all the comfort, 
and light, and glory that is wanted. Eve's dej^arture is 
admirably conceived. I did not expect it, because I w^as 
chained too much as I Avent along to expect anything; 
but the event follows so naturally, that it produced an 
effect like historical truth. I should never have objected 
to the couplet, if it had often been "oi'itten as you Avrite it 
— with that full and yet unwearying harmony, w^ell varied, 
but never interrupted. There are but two expressions that 
struck me as blemishes : concerning the one, you will agree 
with me ; about the other, perhaps, you will not. The first 
is the epithet ' unreturning,' in the last line of the first 
paragraph : the other is ' this congenial side.' The direct 
reference to the rib is perfectly proper ; and yet I wish the 
word ' breast' had been used instead of ' side.' 

" No man who looks into his own heart when he is 
capable of understanding it, can doubt that there is a dis- 
ease in human nature, for which the grace of God is the 
only remedy: with this belief, or rather wdth this sense^ and 
this co7iviction, there can be no presumption in saying that 
14 



158 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY 

I regard the first chapter of Genesis not as an historical 
narration, but an allegorical veil for this mystery — a mys- 
tery that has been unconsciously acknowledged among 
mankind, because it has been universally felt. If I under- 
stood the story literally, then I should read the hne in the 
feeling with which you have written it : but that the for- 
mation of Eve is the only part of this very beautiful 
naiTative which has not the solemnity of the rest, is ap- 
jiarent from the numberless light allusions to which it has 
given rise, from men who had no irreverent thought or 
intention. 

" I have passed through many changes of belief, as is 
likely to be the case wdth every man of ardent mind M'ho 
is not early gifted with humility. Gibbon shook my belief 
in Christianity when I was a school-boy of seventeen. 
When I went to college it was in the height of the 
French Revolution — and I drank deeply of that cup. 
I had a friend there whose name you have seen in my 
poems — Edmimd Seward, an admirable man in all things, 
whose only fault was that he was too humble ; for humble, 
even to a fault, he was. In his company my religious 
interests were strengthened. But to those Avho have any 
religious feeling, you need not be told how chilling and 
withering the lip-service of a university must be. Sick 
of the college, chapel, and church, Ave tried the meeting- 
house ; and there we were disgusted too. Seward left 
college meaning to take orders ; I, who liad the same des- 
tination, became a deist after he left us, and turned my 
thoughts to the profession of physic. Godwin's book 
fell into my hands : many of his doctrines appeared as 
monstrous to me then as they do now ; but I became 
enamored of a philosophical millennium. Coleridge came 
from Cambridge to visit a friend at Oxford on his way to 



SOUTIIEY'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 159 

a journey in "Wales. That friend was my bosom com- 
2:)anion : Coleridge Avas brought to my rooms — and that 
meeting fixed the future fortunes of us both. 

" Coleridge had at that time thought little of politics ; in 
morals he was as loose as men at a university usually are : 
but he Avas a Unitarian. My morals were of the sternest 
stoicism: the same feeling which made me a poet kept 
mo pure — before I had used Werther and Rousseau for 
Epictetus. Our meeting was mutually agreeable ; I re- 
formed his life, and he disposed me towards Christianity, 
by showing me that none of the arguments that had led 
mo to renounce it were a23plicable against the Socinian 
scheme. He remained three or four weeks at Oxford, and 
we planned a Utopia of our own, to be founded in the 
wilds of America ujion the basis of common property — 
each laboring for all — a Pantisocracy — a republic of 
Reason and Virtue. 

" For this dream I gave uj) every other prospect. How 
painfully and slowly I was awakened from it, this is not 
the time to say ; for my jiurpose is but to show you whei*e 
I have been upon my pilgrim's progress, and how far I 
have advanced upon the way. I became a Socinian from 
the reasonableness of the scheme ; and still more so be- 
cause I was shocked by the consequences of irreligion, such 
as they were seen in my daily intercourse with sceptics, 
unbelievers, and atheists. I reasoned on it till I learnt and 
felt how vain it is to build up a religion wholly upon his- 
torical proofs. I learnt that religion could never be a 
living and quickening principle if we only assented to it as 
a mere act of the understanding. Something more was 
necessary — an operation of grace — a manifestation of 
the Spirit — an inward revelation — a recognition of re- 
vealed truth. This drew me towards Quakerism, yet with 



160 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

too clear a perception of the errors and follies of the 
Quakers to be wholly in union with them. In what has 
all this ended you will ask? That I am still what in old 
times was called a seeher — a sheep without a fold, but not 
without a shepherd ; cUnging to all that Christ has clearly 
taught, but shrinking from all attempts at defending, by 
articles of faith, those points which the gospels have left 
indefinite. I am of no visible church, but assuredly I feel 
myself in the communion of saints. 

"Hence, perhaps it is, that wherever I find love and 
faith and devotement, there I am, so flir, in communion. 
I look to those points which we hold in common, and 
overlook the accidents that accompany these in the in- 
dividual. Not that I am indifferent to the differences of 
belief; on the contrary, no man has a stronger conviction 
of the fatal consequences which result from the corruptions 
of Christianity. You have seen what I have said of the 
Inquisition : you may find more of my feelings iipon the 
subject in the eighth number of the ' Quarterly,' upon the 
Evangelical Sects, and in tlie first, upon the Baptist Mission 
in India. 

" Vanderkemp's history is in the first volume of the 
Transactions of the Missionary Society. I have both the 
works of Crantz, which you offer me ; and also Laskiel. 
The first two volumes of the Moravian accounts I thought 
you might possibly have been able to procure for me, as 
the neighborhood of Fulneck seemed to imply a Moravian 
population in that part of the country. The other volumes 
I possess : those I want were borrowed for me from Mr. 
Latrobe, and I have extracted from them the most ma- 
terial parts, especially those relating to Bavian's Kloof. 
The scene of Schmidt's house, and the remains of his 
mission in old Helen and her Bible, are worthy subjects 



LETTER FROM SOUTHEY. 161 

even for your pen. I do not consider that you feel too 
strongly on these subjects. I have often said that, of all 
things in the world, nothing could give me so high a grati- 
fication as to find one of my own ancestors among Fox's 
Martyrs ! nay, if I Avere to find one among the popish 
martyrs of Elizabeth or James, the feeling would be little 
abated. That beast Henry VIII. hauled Papists and Pro- 
testants to Smithfield upon the same hurdle : each thought 
the other Avorthy of death, and in the sure road to perdi- 
tion ; but I verily believe that both parties met that day 
in Paradise ! Dear Montgomery, though you may think 
me a heretic, you will not rank this among my heresies. I 
would fain say something upon Avhat I look upon as yours 
— implied in one mournful sentence. But when you speak 
of experience to your ' eternal and irrepai-able cost,' I hope 
and am assured that upon this point also there can be no 
radical difference between you and hie, and that in a 
happier state of bodily health, you would not, and could 
not, have Avrittcn these Avords. I long to sec you and to 
talk with you of this Avorld and of the next, When Avill 
you come to me ? From Leeds there is a coach to Kendal ; 
and from Kendal there is one here. By this letter you 
have more knoAAdedge of my inner man than half the world 
Avould obtain in their Avhole lives; for I am one AA-ho shrinks 
in like a snail, \Adien I find no sympathy — but when I do, 
opening myself like a flower to the morning sun. God 

bless you. 

Your affectionate friend, 

"ROBEKT SOUTIIEY." 

A glance behind The "World before the Flood gives us 

some notion of the labors of authorship. Born of toil, 

hoAv fcAV appreciate the travail of soul which ushers a new 
14* 



162 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

poem into the world. Having been born, wbat perils 
beset its infancy. Snapped at, growled over, mauled, 
bitten, liappy if it survive to bring its merits before the 
tribunal of time, whose discerning verdict, if unfavorable, 
will consign it to a gentler end. 

The "Edinburgh," baited Avith bigger prey, let The West 
Indies alone ; but its apprehensive author already quakes 
for his forthcoming child. " These giants Avill find me 
out," he says, " and war against me with all their might, 
or I may conclude my fame and my poem destined to 
speedy and inevitable oblivion ; for I consider their praise 
as entirely out of the question, and if the work has not 
merit enough to provoke their spleen, it will not have 
enough to attract any permanent admiration on the part 
of the public. I am endeavoring to make up my mind for 
the alternative of gradual success or utter failure. I feel 
so many difficulties in my own views of the subject, and so 
many imperfections in my execution of the plan, that these, 
added to the discouragements which have been cast in my 
way by others, have greatly humbled my hopes, though I 
believe they have quickened my exertions, and more than 
doubled my diligence in touching and retouching those 
passages that cither please or provoke me the most." 

Anxious to make the most of his friend's criticism, he 
spares no pains to perfect his labors. 

"Since I received back my manuscrijit of The 'W^orld 
before the Flood from you," he writes to Roscoe, " the 
entire remodification of it has been the chief, I may say the 
only object of my poetical studies ; they have been intense 
and mcessant in those hours that I could sj^are to them, 
amidst the hurr}^ and cares of business, the languor of con- 
stitutional melancholy, and the occasional discouragements 
which I have experienced in my progress, both from the 



LITERARY LABORS. 163 

misgivings of my own mind, and tlio forebodings of some 
of my friends, who from the beginning augured my inevit- 
able miscarriage, and who still, to supj)ort the credit of their 
own jjresciencc, do their best to make me miscarry, by 
hinting their fears concerning my hopes. You will, per- 
haps, add one to the number of these, though not from 
precisely similar feelings ; but I mean you will probably be 
one of those who doubt my prudence and quake for my 
success, when I tell you that I have so essentially altered 
the plan of this piece, that it will be at least twice the ex- 
tent of the original, should I live to complete it. Aj:)oet 
seldom, perhaps nev^er, imjoroves uj)on a plot once deliber- 
ately formed and laboriously executed, when he breaks up 
the whole and remodels the materials with the addition of 
many others. Consequently, you will fear that my new 
poem, whatever may be its merits, will be inferior to the 
old one, whatever even its faults. I will endeavor to dis- 
prove this, not by argument but by fact, of which you will 
be the judge when my work is finished. Meanwhile it is 
only reasonable, nay it is imperatively just, that my friends 
should suspend their sentence of condemnation till the 
crime is committed for which they threaten it. You loill 
do this ; and whatever may be your doubts of my success, 
you will not assist to prevent it by expressing them harshly. 
It is impossible in a letter to communicate an outline of my 
projected alterations,, and indeed, if I could I would not ; 
my plan must be seen and judged in its execution, and not 
in the abstract ; for it might appear good in the latter, and 
miserable in the former, as in the latter it might jDromise 
little, and in the former work miracles." 

On the cares and perplexities of his calling, the friendly 
sympathy of Southey fell like sunshine. Personal acquaint- 
ance they had as yet none. Southey was now in the noon 



164 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

of his literary excellence and domestic enjoyment. He 
had, indeed, to labor for his daily bread, but head and 
heart whole for the task. Keswick, his forty years' home, 
is in the midst of the " finest and most rememberable " 
of English scenery ; Skiddaw, with its giant grandeur ; 
the larch-clad slojies of Latrig ; Derwcnt-water, gemmed 
with islands, and girdled by field and forest ; Greta, with 
its babbling melodies — these, with friendly neighbors, 
household felicities, and a growing library, might well 
compensate for the brilliant society and literary quickening 
of the metropolis, nearly three hundred miles ofi*. 

"My Dear Montgomery, 

" You talk of yourself and me in terras of comparison 
upon which I must not comment, lest you should be as 
much pained by the comment as I am by the text. Let 
that pass. If I had not admired your poetry, and felt it, and 
loved it, and loved you for its sake, I should not so often 
have thought of you, and spoken of you, and determined 
to see you, nor have broken through the belt of ice at last. 
" You wish me a sounder frame, both of body and mind, 
than your own. My body, God be thanked ! is as con- 
venient a tenement as its occupier could desire. When 
you see me you will fancy me far advanced in consumption, 
so little is there of it ; but there has never been more : and 
though it is by no means unlikely (from family predisposi- 
tion) that this may be my appointed end, it is not at all the 
more likely because of my lean and hungry appearance. 
I am in far more danger of nervous diseases, from which 
nothing but perpetual self-management, and the fortunate 
circumstances of my life and disposition, preserve me. 
Nature gave me an indefatigable activity of mind, and a 
buoyancy of si:>irit which has ever enabled me to think 



LETTER FROM SOUTIIEY. 165 

little of difficulties, and to live iii the light of hope ; these 
gifts, too, were accomjDanied with an hilarity which has 
enabled me to retain a boy's heart to the age of eight-and- 
thirty: but my senses are perilously acute — impi-essions 
sink into me too deeply ; and at one time ideas had all the 
vividness and apparent reality of actual impressions to such 
a degree, that I believe a speedy removal to a foreign 
country, bringing with it a total change of all external ob- 
jects, saved me from imminent danger. The remedy, or, 
at least, the prevention, of this is variety of employment ; 
and that it is that has made me the various writer that I 
am, even more than the necessity of pursuing the gainful 
paths of literature. If I fix my attention, morning and 
evening, upon one subject, and if my latest evening studies 
are of a kind to interest me deeply, my rest is disturbed 
and broken; and those bodily derangements ensue that 
indicate great nervous susceptibility. Experience having 
taught me this, I fly from one thing to another, each new 
train of thought neutralizing, as it were, the last ; and thus 
m general maintain the balance so steadily, that I lie down 
at night with a mind as tranquil as an infant's. 

" That I am a very happy man I owe to my early mar- 
riage. When little more than onc-and-twcnty, I married 
under circumstances as singular as they well could be — 
and, to all appearances, as improvident ; but from that 
hour to this, I have had reason to bless the day. The 
main source of disquietude was thus at once cut off; I had 
done with hope and fear upon the most agitating and most 
important action of life, and ray heart was at rest. Sev- 
eral years elapsed before I became a father; and then 
the keenest sorrow which I ever endured was for the loss 
of an only child, twelve months old. Since that event I 
have had five children, most of whom have been taken 



166 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

from me. Of all the sorrows these are the most poignant ; 
but I am the better for them, and never pour out my soul 
in prayer without acknowledging that these dispensations 
have drawn me nearer to God. 

" But I will not jiursue this strain too far. The progress 
of my mind through many changes and mazes of opinion, 
you shall know hereafter; and the up-hill work which I 
have had in the world — up-hill, indeed, but by a path of 
my own choosing, and always with the conviction that I 
was gaining the ascent, as well as toiling for it. Something 
I must say, while there is yet room for it, concerning Tlie 
World before the Flood. You say that you are about to 
begin it again : before you do this, reconsider during one 
half-hour — what doubtless you have considered long ago — 
\\hether it would not be better to make the Flood itself 
the termination of the poem, which would render no other 
alteration of the story [necessary], as far as I understand 
it, than that of relating the assumption of Enoch in the 
person of a narrator instead of your own. It seems to me 
you would gain a grandeur and even a unity beyond Avhat 
your present design affords. My intention was to assume 
Burnett's theory [of the Deluge], a book almost unequalled 
for its power of imagination, and to have connected Whis- 
ton's with it. I have conceived a youth, the bosom friend 
of Japhet, perfectly convinced by Noah, but refusing to 
flee from the wi-ath to come, because the maid whom he 
loved (though herself convinced also) will not forsake her 
parents. Their death, followed by their immediate beati- 
tude, would have made an impressive scene. The outstand- 
ing figure of the anti-Anakim or Jacobinical party (for I 
had the parallel strongly in my mind) was a man with the 
best feelings and the best intentions; but erring in this — 
that he Uved without God in the world ; that he trusted in 



LETTER FROM ROSCOE. 167 

his own strength ; and, provided he were Hkely to attain 
his end, was regardless of the means. He, after a St. Bar- 
tholomew massacre of all his party, was to have burnt 
(* * * ?) a sacrifice to the god-tyrant. The great temple- 
palace was to have been some Tower-of-Babel edifice, built 
in despite of prophecy, and as if defying the vengeance 
that was denounced. It would have resisted the weight 
of the waters of the Flood, and have overstood all things, 
till (following Burnett's sublime vision) the shell of the 
earth gave M^ay. You have here all that is worth remem- 
bering of a plan which never went farther than this. If 
any part of it could serve you as a hint, believe me, Mont- 
gomery, I should feel glad at having contributed one 
mihewn stone to your building. God bless you. 
" Your affectionate friend, 

"RoiiEUT SO'JTIIEY." 

Roscoe thus writes to Montgomery : — ■ 

"Allerton, January 2, 1812. 
"My Dear Sir, 

"I have been quite shocked on seeing The 'World 
before the Flood advertised, as being in a state of forward- 
ness, by the booksellers, at the end of the Edinburgh 
Review. Is it possible that my very culpable neglect in 
not replying to your last kind letter can have deprived me 
of the opportunity of seeing it in its improved state before 
it appears in public? I assure you, most feelingly, that 
this will give me the greatest concern — not that I conceive 
that any suggestions of mine can be of the least service — 
but because I shall be deprived of a high gratification, and 
perhaps lead you into an opinion that I am indifferent to 
the fate of a work of which I have the highest opmion, as 
far as I was favored wdth a perusal. You were so good as 



168 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

to say tliat I should probably hear from you again before 
the publication, but as this was coupled with an unper- 
formed contingency, that I should write in the mean time, 
I cannot pervert it into a breach of promise. I presume 
from the circumstances to which I have referred, that the 
work is already at press, and that I shall not get a sight of 
it till published. If this be the case, allow me at least the 
satisfaction of thinking that my silence has not been attri- 
buted to a wrong cause, or that I could be supposed for a 
moment to cease to be solicitous either for your favorable 
opinion, or the success of your productions. I believe I 
might liave as good a right as most others to allege excuses 
of business, &c., but the truth is, that a proci'astinating 
disposition, and an unconquerable reluctance to take up a 
pen when I once get it out of my fingers, are the principal 
causes of my offence, and the great plagues of my life. 

" Could not this inconvenience in some degree be re- 
medied, and could we not contrive to have an interview, 
when more can be said in an hour than can be written in a 
week ? When my son William had the pleasure of seeing 
you at Sheffield, he formed some expectation that you 
might be induced to visit this part of the country. Let 
me then inform you that I have lately enlarged my house, 
and that I can accommodate a friend ; and that I know no 
one whom it would give me greater pleasure to see under 
my roof than yourself, where you shall be your own master, 
and divide your time between town and conntry, reading 
and exercise, as you wish. No time can be inconvenient, 
if I have only a day or two's notice to be in the Avay ; and 
I shall only add, that the sooner it takes place, the more 
agreeable it Avill be to, 

"My dear sir, your ever faithful friend, 

"W. ROSCOE." 



MONTGOMERY'S REPLY. 169 

In reply, the poet writes : — 

"Sheffield, January 17, 1812. 
"Dear Sir, 

" I do not know whether I was more pleased or sorry 
at the concern which you express in your last kind letter, 
lest I should have prepared my long poem for the public, 
without again laying it before you in manuscript. But I 
should, indeed, have been grieved, if your apprehension 
had been well-founded, and I had forfeited your confidence 
by not giving you mine, when it was most due, and where 
I might exj^ect to be essentially benefited by your candid 
but indulgent criticisms. I will tell you the truth. You 
were the last friend to whom I communicated the poem in 
its original state. When I received it back from you, I 
laid it aside, with all the comments which had been made 
upon it, for several months, and, indeed, shut it as much as 
possible out of my thoughts ; my mind was wearied of the 
subject ; I had looked upon it, as one may look upon the 
sun, till it becomes darkness, and the eye turns for refresh- 
ment to green fields. Glorious as it had appeared to me 
at first, at length it either lost its lustre or I my sight with 
gazing at it. Indeed, I was dissatisfied with my own ex- 
ecution of the poem, and disheartened, almost to despair, 
by the strictures which had been passed upon it by some 
of my best friends. You and Dr. Aikin were by far the 
most favorable in your judgments, and I attribute none of 
my misery on this occasion to either of you ; at the same 
time I do not mean to arraign the severer sentences of my 
other friends, but they told me with more boldness of the 
faults of my jioem, and almost jiersuaded me that it was 
worthless, or my mind powerless, for I could not for a very 
long time conceive any way to render the plan more inter- 
lu 



IVO LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

esting, without wliich they convinced me it was impossible 
to please the public with such a piece. While I was medi- 
tating the renovation of it, Longman and Co. wrote to me 
to say that they were preparing a list of works for publica- 
tion, and they wished my name to apjjear with an announce- 
ment of any poem that I might have in hand. This was in 
autumn, 1810. I gave them the title of Tlie World before 
the Floods but told them it certainly would not be ready 
for the press in less than twelve months. It was, however, 
announced, most prematurely, as I now find, for the poem, 
though again announced after the interval of a year, is not 
likely to be lit for publication before next Christmas, at the 
earliest. Towards the latter end of 1810, having new-cast 
the form of my jiiece, I began to work upon it with consi- 
derable spirit, and continued diligently at my task till Juno 
last ; Avhen, having finished four cantos, the greater part of 
which was original matter, I sent the manuscript to my 
severest critic, who is at the same time one of the sincerest 
and warmest of my friends, lie kept the copy till Novem- 
ber, and then returned it with such a terrifying string of 
remarks attached to it, that I was ready to commit both 
the poem and the comment to the flames, when I found I 
had been laboring eighteen months almost in vain. I laid 
tlicni out of my sight for a month, and then with a trem- 
bling hand began to trace the poem line by line over again, 
altering, if not amending, wherever he had found fault, but 
pertinaciously adhering to my own plan. I have nearly 
gone through these four first cantos ; I had written a fifth, 
which my Aristarchus had not seen, being composed in the 
interval while he had the others in his Inquisition chambers. 
This is the statu quo of The World before the Floods but if 
I have health and a sound mind, I mean to execute my 
jilan in my own way now ; and, availing myself of all the 



MONTGOMERY'S REPLY. 171 

critiques wliicli lie by mc on the i^oem in its original state, 
I will not be diverted by any future interference of friends 
till I have completely gone through the task which I have 
set to myself Then, indeed, I trust I shall be as wilhng as 
a ]:)oct ought to be, to hear the opinions of those whom he 
esteems, m order to form his o?xv2, concerning the merit and 
probable success of his work. If I have any opportunity, 
in the course of the summer, of safely conveying to you 
any considerable portion of the poem in its progress, I will 
most gladly avail m) self of it, and thankfully receive your 
remarks and advice. But till I have two copies of the MS., 
I dare not again trust it to a coach-office entry, for I was 
held in miserable suspense when I sent the four first cantos 
to my friend above-mentioned, w^ho lives in London, and 
who left it just at the time my precious packet arrived, and 
did not acknowledge the receipt of it for several weeks. I 
had no transcript, and a very imperfect remembrance of 
upwards of eleven hundred Imes, the scanty painful fruit 
of eight months' labor. Should I be enabled (though at 
present I see no prospect of it), to accept of your very 
kind invitation this year, to pay a visit to Liverpool, you 
shall see all I may have at the time, and vre will discuss 
freely every part of it, if you are not already sick of the 
subject from this tiresome detail of circumstances sadly in- 
teresting to me, but of little importance to anybody else. 
I have been thus particular, not to indulge the jDetulance or 
the vanity of my OAvn feelings, but from sincere respect to 
you, and an anxious desire to convince you that I have not 
wilfully either slighted or neglected one to whom I am so 
truly and gratefully indebted. Since I last wrote to you I 
have had an unexpected opportunity of opening a fiiendly 
correspondence with Mr. Southey ; a man whom I now 
feel as much disposed to love for his own sake, as I before 



172 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

admired him for his incomparable talents. I am thus sud- 
denly reminded of this rich acquisition to my few but 
valuable friendyhips with eminent as well as excellent men, 
by having just received a frank, enclosing a transcript of 
the first canto of his new poem, ' Pelayo,' which he had 
previously promised me. He, it seems, is not afraid to 
submit his unpublished poems to the test of confidential 
criticism, which I have found of all criticism the most difii- 
cult to meet ; because there is so much delicacy and respect 
due to the persons exercising it, that Avhatever be the hon- 
est judgment of a jjoet's own mind (which, after all, he is 
bound to abide by, no less in justice to the pubHc than to 
himself), when he differs from their decisions (and their 
decisions are often contradictory), he appears to do so from 
self-will or self love, and he is gravely told that a poet is 
the most incompetent judge of his own works. This I do 
positively deny, and I aflirm on the contrary, that that man, 
whom all allow to he a poet, is the best individual judge of 
his own productions, though unquestionably the true worth 
of them can only be ascertained by the general estimation 
in which they are held by others who are qualified, each for 
himself but no one for the public, to judge of them. I 
have hastily, but earnestly, read over Mr. S.'s canto of ' Pe- 
layo,' and the first impression on my mind concerning it is, 
that after the general opening, which did not strike me 
particularly, the remainder constitutes the most awakening 
introduction to a story that I have met with in modern 
poetry. I have always considered Southey to stand fore- 
most and alone — for the second is far behind him — of his 
contemporaries. I find a thousand faults in him, and per- 
haps there may be half that number fairly chargeable upon 
his poetry, but they are faults of style and manner — wilful 
faults, and therefore incorrigible ones ; yet I delight in him 



LETTER TO EOSCOE. I'js 

beyond any one of bis bretliren, because I am more in bis 
1^0 wcr — be carries me wbitber be pleases witb an ease and 
a velocity so deeply transporting, tbat it seems less the 
force of anotber mind tban tbe spontaneous impulse of my 
own tbat bears me along. 

"Should next summer be a fortnight longer than from my 
present foresight and tbe tables of tbe almanac it is likely to 
be, I will certainly endeavor to employ it well, by making an 
excursion tbat shall include both Liverpool and Keswick ; a 
few days spent at each would be such a refreshment as my 
mind, sick of its sohtary meditations, and weary of the im- 
l^erfect and laborious communication of a few of its thoughts 
in letters, greatly needs to quicken and warm it on these 
subjects, the very interest of which overwhelms and en- 
chants in loneliness, — for I have almost no literary society 
here ; and amidst tbe vexations of business, troubles of 
heart known only to myself, and, indeed, incommunicable 
to others, together with exercises both of my understanding 
and my feelings on subjects tbe most awful and important, 
— amidst these trials and occupations, occasional literary 
discourse with superior men would be a great enjoyment 
to me, who have little relish for the pleasures of dissipation, 
or even of innocent and healthful sports and pastimes. 
When you favor me with another letter, will you say when 
you heard last of Mr. Carey, the poet and artist, who has 
cast me off for more than two years, without assigning any 
cause for a silence that distresses me, principally because 
I fear I have imwittingly offended him. Even if I Icnew 
where he was, I should not intrude myself upon him, but 
I sball always be glad to hear that he is well, and that he 
is doing well. With best remembrance to your family, 
" I remain your obliged friend, 

" J. Montgo:meky." 



174 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" Thank you for your comments on ' Kehama,' " Southey 
again writes. " The best reply that I can make to what 
you say of the Hue — ' never should she behold her father 
more,' is to say that it is altered upon your suggestion. 
You say Kailyal is a Christian — is it not because the poem, 
supposing the truth of the mythology on which it is built, 
requires from her faith and resignation ? I know not how 
it was that in my youth the mythologies and supersti- 
tions of various nations laid strong hold on my imagination 
and struck deep root in it ; so that before I was twenty, 
one of my numerous plans was that of exhibiting the most 
striking fiction of each in a long poem. 'Thalaba' and 
' Kehama' are the fruits of that early plan. ' Madoc ' par- 
takes of it, but only mcidentally. If I had gained money 
as well as reputation by these poems, the whole series 
would ere this have been completed. Do not misunder- 
stand me ; when I talk of gaining money, nothing more 
is meant than supporting myself by my labors ; and the 
literal truth is, that for many years I did not write a line 
of poetry, because I could not afford it! 'Kehama' was 
written before breakfast in hours borrowed from sleep; 
and so is ' Pelayo,' as far as it has yet proceeded. The 
world is brightening upon me now. I get well paid for 
prose ; and yet even in this the capricious humor of the 
times is apparent. Some of the best years of my life have 
been devoted to the ' History of Portugal and its Depend- 
encies,' in a series of works of which only one volume is 
yet before the public, but upon which as much labor and 
scrupulous research has been bestowed as ever was or ■will 
be given to historical compilation. These works will 
scarcely, while I live, pay for their own materials ; whereas 
I might be employed, if I chose, from morning till night. 



LETTER FEOM SOUTHEY. 175 

in reviewing the productions of Messrs. Tag, Kag, and 
Bobtail, at ten guineas per sheet. 

" Dear Montgomery, you say you -wi'ote of nothing but 
yourself; only look back upon the great I's which I have 
sent you in return. I have always said that we English 
are the honestest people in the world, because we are the 
only people who always write that important word with a 
capital letter, as if to show every man's sense of its conse- 
quence. I long to see your antediluvian work. Do not 
talk to me of Alfred — for I am engaged three subjects 
deep after ' Pelayo,' and Heaven knows when that will be 
completed. The next in order is ' Philip's War in New 
England,' with a primitive Quaker for the hero." 



CHAPTER X. 

MAY IX LONDON — MAY MEETINGS — "THE GOOD OLD WAY " — KELIGIOUS 
SOCIETIES — COLERIDGE AND CAMPBELL LECTURE — LETTERS TO PAR- 
KEN — LETTER FROM SOUTIIEY — PARIvEN's DEATH — LETTERS TO IG- 
NATIUS MONTGOMERY — BUXTON, 

The spring of 1812 again found Montgomery in London. 
The May meetings were the chief attraction, for May 
ah-eady was the anniversary month of those great religious 
organizations which send the life-blood of Christianity 
throughout the world. Many of them were then in the 
freshness of their youth. The Society for the Propagation 
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, one of the first organized 
Protestant missionary enterprises, could indeed date hack 
its charter more than one hundred years. It embraced both 
a home and foreign field ; and extensive missionary opera- 
tions were carried on in this country under its i:>atronage. 
John Wesley came to Georgia in its ser^^[ce. Besides a 
Missionary, it was a Bible and Tract Society, issuing scanty 
supplies of religious reading long before the birth of insti- 
tutions for that api^ropriate object. The benefactions of 
this charity flowed more directly from the English Church. 

In 1794, an article apj^eared in the London Evangelical 
Magazine, a Dissenting journal, upon the duty and im- 
portance of foreign missions, which immediately excited 
the most lively interest. The Christian public Avcre ripe 



"THE GOOD OLD WAY." 177 

for action. A convention was convoked, and for three 
days Spafields, one of Lady Huntington's London chapels, 
was filled to overflowing. Rowland Hill, George Burder, 
and Dr. Haweis presented and enforced the object which 
brought them together, with convincing power. The re- 
sult was the London Missionary Society, which in two 
years purchased a ship, and sent off twenty-nine mission- 
aries to distant continents, and islands of the sea. The 
story of the " Duff" and her precious freight, and the 
glowing hopes and fervent prayers w^hich followed in her 
wake, are too well known to be repeated — an imperish- 
able record of the triumphs and defeats which signalize 
the onward progress of the Gospel in the world. 

This quickening spirit of evangelism, rising from the 
ebbing waters of the " great awakening" which has 
irrigated Christendom, hearkened and heard on all sides 
the sighing of souls famishing for the Bread of Life. The 
voice of many a living evangeUst and stout-hearted itin- 
erant was gone. Field-preaching, with the marvellous 
oratory which gave it power, had passed by. The spirit- 
ual emergencies which had marshalled such men as 
Whitefield and "Wesley, Romaine and Rowland Hill, had 
been met, and now, in the subsidence of extraordinary 
measures and the withdrawal of distinguished champions, 
the sober second thought of the Christian public was called 
upon to devise ways and means systematically and per- 
manently to supply the people with religious instruction. 
In 1781, a village pastor, burdened with the spiritual needs 
of his flock, wrote and printed a little tract, which he sent 
to all the houses round ; some received it gladly, and 
others mocked at " The Good Old Way," for so was it 
named. The success of the little book, however, pleased 
and encouraged him. He soon published six more, at a 



178 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" penny a piece," rich in goodly teachings, and so for 
nearly twenty years did the excellent and jiains-taking 
George Burder unfold to himself and the world the idea 
of a Tract Society. In May, 1799, he went np to London 
to attend the anniversary of the London Missionary So- 
ciety. A sermon was preached in Surrey chapel. At its 
close, while the heai-ts of Christians were glowing with 
the preacher's eloquence, a few turned aside into an 
" upper chamber," to whom Mr. Burder disclosed his 
experiments and his success in a new field of evangelical 
labor. The little group listened with profound interest. 
" Combination and enlargement," was the immediate re- 
sponse. The next morning, forty gentlemen breakflisted 
together at St. Paul's Coffee-house. Joseph Hughes was 
there, with his clear head and persistent industry ; Row- 
land Hill, with his exuberant wit and glowing vigor ; 
Wilks, with his sagacity and clownishness ; Thomas 
Wilson, thoughtful and earnest. What other dishes were 
discussed we do not know; but certain it is, "The Re- 
ligious Tract Society " was served up and well digested. 
This was on the 9th of May, 1799. 

When Burder was Avriting and jDrinting his first little 
sheet in Lancaster, a gentleman, in pui'suit of a gardener, 
was rumaging among the neglected masses of Gloucestei*. 
Troops of noisy, dirty, swearing children dogged his heels. 
" Oh, sir," exclaimed a poor Avoman, " if you could only 
see them Sundays. There are a great many more and a 
hundred times worse — it is a very hell upon earth." 

The gentleman may have found a gardener in his walk ; 
but he found something more, for he stumbled on his 
great life-work, and Robert Raikes went home to project 
the first Sunday-school which the world had yet seen. His 
success kindled an interest all over the kingdom. Every- 



RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 179 

where pious men and women offered themselves in this 
new field of labor, and multitudes of children, hitherto 
totally neglected and helpless in spiritual poverty, Avere 
gathered into these folds of religious instruction. Every 
city and sect espoused them; and in July, 1803, a 
" Sunday-school Union" was formed in London to give 
efficiency to the general cause. In another part of England 
the tears of a little girl, whom stormy weather hindered 
from taking her weekly seven miles' walk over the hills 
to read a Welsh Bible, deeply affected the heart of her 
pastor. The circumstance was expressive of the general 
scarcity of the word of God, and the grief, " which fell a 
little short of anguish," felt in some districts of Wales on 
account of it. The pastor's heart was stirred, as men's 
minds are sometimes stirred by seemingly simple and 
strong incidents, when the public mind is ripe for action, 
and new tracks of effort are to be struck out into the 
teeming future. Rev. Thomas Charles, for that was the 
2)astor's name, journeyed up to London, to attend a busi- 
ness meeting of the newly formed Tract Society. It was 
in December, 1802. " My people want Bibles. Wales is 
famishing for the word of God," is the pastor's agoni;:ing 
cry. Can such a want be put off or neglected ? But how 
supply it ? The question needed little reiteration. " A 
Society must be formed for this purpose, and if for Wale? 
why not for the empire and the world?'''' said Josepli 
Hughes, his eye kindling and his heart encompassing the 
world-wide want. Joseph Hughes was a Baptist clergy- 
man, but no sectarian leadmg-strings crippled the catholic 
breadth of his manly piety. 

The thought has taken wings. Granville Sharp lays 
hold of it. Wilberforce embraces it. Zachary Macaulay 
advocates it. Lord Teignmouth subscribes to it. Bishops 



180 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

and laymen, ei^iscopal and dissenting interests rally around 
the proposed institution. At a general meeting of its 
friends on the 2d of May, 1804, at the London Tavern, 
the new Society may be said to have been christened under 
the name of the " British and Foreign Bible Society," in 
whose capacious grasp every nation under heaven may 
hear the word of God in their own language. 

Montgomery had now begun to take a growing interest 
in these institutions. Tlie year before (1811), Mr. Hughes, 
with John Owen, and Dr. SteinkopfF, Secretaries of the Bible 
Society, visited Sheffield, and advocated its cause before a 
crowded audience. The editor of the Iris was present, 
who, in the next number, thus warmly expresses himself: 

" To confess the truth, we surrendered our feelings so 
entirely to the speakers on this delightful occasion, that we 
were perfectly j^assive to every momentary impression 
which they made in the course of their respective ad- 
dresses; and it Avas not till long after the meeting was 
over, that we could so compose ourselves, as to endeavor 
to fix on our mind any definite idea of the pleasure which 
we had enjoyed, or recollect even the prominent features 
of the speeches which avo had heard. We certainly never 
did witness such transcendent and contrasted abilities so 
well and so successfully employed. Yet, after all, what 
were the men, and what was their manner of speech, in 
comparison with the sublime and insjiiring subject on 
which they exercised their talents? Let us give God the 
glory : it was the altar on which these gifts were laid that 
sanctified the gifts ; and though we may not be able to 
heap such precious ofierings there, yet to that altar let us 
bring what we have, though it be nothing but a broken 
heart and a contrite spirit. When the Avise men from the 
East had opened their treasures, they presented the infant 



COLERIDGE AND CAMPBELL. 181 

Saviour with gold, frankincense, and myrrh ; yet was the 
simple homage of the shepherds at his manger-side not less 
accepted. Let each, let all of ns, then, join hand and 
heart, however jDoor, however weak we may be, to forward, 
the olorious work in which these our elder brethren are 
so pre-eminently engaged." 

In the spring of 1812, as w^e have said, Montgomery 
visited the metropolis, chiefly to attend the anniversaries 
of these religious Societies, towards whose purposes and 
progress his Christian sympathies were now strongly 
attracted. Exeter Hall, a place so intimately associated 
with the May meetings in our day, was not built until 
1830. Freemason's Hall, in Great Queen street, Ilolborn, 
was then the principal centre of popular assembling, and 
its walls long resounded with the stirring appeals of an- 
niversary eloquence. " The Royal Institution" also offered 
its bill to the literary tastes of the Shefiield. visitor, where 
Coleridge and Campbell were draAving brilliant houses 
by their lectures on poetry. The author of ' The Pleasures 
of Hope' and 'Gertrude of Wyoming' hved in the beau- 
tiful village of Sydenham, some miles from London, de- 
pendent upon publishers for his daily bread. And Cole- 
ridge — it was then " poor Coleridge ! " The terrible 
habit which quenched the light of his genius, was rapidly 
gaining the mastery, " so that by two o'clock," says one, 
sadly retrospecting on his fallen greatness, " when he 
should, have been in attendance at the Royal Institution, 
he was too often unable to rise from his bed. Then came 
dismissals of audience after audience with pleas of illness ; 
and on many of his lecture days, I have seen all Alberraarle 
street closed by a lock of carriages filled with women of 
distinction, until the servants of the Institution, or their 
own footmen, advanced to the carriage doors with the 
16 



182 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

intelligence that Mr, Coleridge Lad been taken suddenly- 
ill." And how did he appear, if happily able to reach his 
chair ? " 'No heart, no sonl, was in anything he said ; no 
strength of feeling in recalling universal truths ; no j)Ower 
of origmality or compass of moral relations in his novel- 
ties — all was a poor, faint reflection from jewels once 
scattered in the highway by himself in the prodigality of 
his early oi:»ulence — a mendicant's dependence on the alms 
dropped from the overflowing treasury of happier times." 
What was Montgomery's impression of his brother 
poets ? " Campbell read from a paper before him," he 
replies, " but in such an energetic manner, and with such 
visible efiect, as I should hardly have supposed possible. 
His statements were clear, his style elegant, and his reason- 
ing conclusive. After having wound up the attention of 
his hearers to the highest jjitch, brought his arguments to 
a magnificent climax, and closed with a quotation from 
Shakspeare, in his best manner, ofi* he went, like a rocket ! 
This lecture was the more striking, from its contrast with 
that delivered by Coleridge the evening before from the 
same rostrum. In the former case, the lecturer, though 
impressing me at once, and in a high degree, with the 
power of genius, occasionally accompanied the most sub- 
lime but inconclusive trains of reasoning Avith the most 
intense — not to say painful — physiognomical expression 
I ever beheld ; his brows being knit, and his cheeks puck- 
ered into deep triangular Avrinkles, by the violence of his 
own emotions. But, notwithstanding the frequent ob- 
scurity of his sentiments, and this ' j^ainful ' accompani- 
ment, when the lecture closed, you could not say you 
had been disajopointed. Whatever Campbell undertakes 
he finishes ; Coleridge too often leaves splendid attempts 
incomplete. The former, when I heard him, seemed hke a 



REFLECTIONS ON LONDON. 183 

race-horse, starting, careering, and coming in with admira- 
ble effect ; the latter resembled that of one of the King's 
heavy dragoons, rearing, plunging, and prancing in a 
crowd, performing grand evolutions, but making little or 
no progress." 

But among the manifold attractions which literature and 
art could offer in the splendid capital, the leanings of his 
heart are thus disclosed : 

" London may indeed be the metropolis of vice, but it is 
the metropolis of virtue also. If sin abounds there, more 
than elsewhere, grace likewise abounds there more, and is 
thence universally diffused through the nation. The fact 
is plain : in London the masses of good and evil are so 
condensed and contrasted, that when we contemplate both 
together, we are appalled at the enormous disproportion ; 
if we look at the evil separately, we tremble lest fire from 
heaven should suddenly come down and consume the city 
more guilty than Sodom or Gomorrah ; yet when we turn 
to behold the good that is there, we might hope that Lon- 
don would be permitted to stand for ever, for the sake of 
the righteous who dwell in it. Every lover of nature, and 
of the God of nature in his visible works, prefers the coun- 
try to the town. Of all the months, the month of May — 
and such a May as smiles and blooms around us now — of 
all the months the month of May is justly celebrated by 
the poet as being, 

" ' If not the first, the fairest of the year.' 

" At this enchanting season, when an invisible hand is 
awakening the woods, and shaking the trees into foliage, — 
when an invisible foot is walkmg the plains and the valleys, 
where flowers and fragrance follow its steps, — when a 
voice, unheard by man, is teaching every little bird to sing, 



184 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

in every busli, the praises of God, — -u^hcn a beneficent 
power, perceived only in its effects, is diffusing life, and 
light, and liberty, and joy throughout the whole creation, — 
at this enchanting season, who would not love the country ? 
Who would choose the filth, and confinement, and tumult 
of the town? I love the country; I love the month of 
May ; yet the month of May, when the country is most 
beautiful (had I freedom of choice), I would spend in Lon- 
don. And why ? Because in that month the assemblies 
of the people of God are most frequent and most full. 
Then, too, the tribes from the provinces go up to worship 
there at the anniversaries of various institutions. The bliss 
and festivity of nature in spring are but faint and imperfect 
resemblances of the enjoyment of those seasons of refresh- 
ing from the presence of the Most High." 

On his return home, the thread of his summer life we 
draw out from his letters. He thus writes to Parken : 

"Sheffield, June 10, 1812. 
" My Deae Feiexd, 

" This is the fifth letter I have written to-day (you 
would tell me it is not yet written, but it will be before 
you can tell me so, Mr. Special Pleader !) and, therefore, I 
promise you it shall be a brief one. Indeed, I have nothing 
to say except that I am once more in Sheffield, but not yet 
settled into myself; neither the whirl of mind, nor the 
nervous agitation of my frame, have yet been wearied into 
rest. Since I left home in the beginnmg of May, I have 
never yet had one hour of sober thinking, or sober feeling, 
— I mean every-day thinking and feeling, — thinking and 
feeling that do not wear and tear out life itself, with alter- 
nate joys and torments, reveries or trances. O how I long 
for quietude ! After all the excesses and exhaustion of such 



LETTER TO PARKEN. 185 

intercourse as I held in London with spirits of fire, nnd air, 
and earth, and water, — for spirits of each of these de- 
scriptions I encountered, — my heart and soul desire noth- 
ing so earnestly as peace in solitude. In town I had too 
much society ; at home I have too little ; four weeks of 
the former have therefore so unsettled me, that it will re- 
quire four weeks of the latter to brmg me back to my 
lonely habits — I mean to the enjoyment of them, in the 
easy, regular, unconscious exercise of them. Certainly I 
saw and heard a great deal in London, but it was Uke see- 
ing the hedges, or hearing the nightingale (as I actually 
did) out of a stage-coach window, the former in such rapid 
retrograde motion, that no distinct picture of them could 
be retained, the notes of the latter so interrupted or 
deadened with the lumbering of wheels, and the cracking 
of the whip, that they were caught like the accidental 
tones of the ^olian harji, when the wind will neither play 
on it nor yet let it alone, but dallies with the strmgs, till 
they tremble into momentary music, instantly dissolving, 
and disappointing the ear that aches with listening. I 
wonder if you will understand this ; I am sure I do ; and 
yet I doubt whether I can make any one else. But all the 
sights and sounds of the last month were not thus ineffable 
and evanescent to me. Your kind looks are still smiling 
upon me, and your kind words still heard in my heart. I 
was often dull and distracted in your presence ; but it 
was ' my weakness and my melancholy ' made me so ; for 
towards the latter end of my visit, I was much indisposed, 
and most so when I had most occasion to be otherwise. 
My brother and sister, to whom I have written, will tell 
you more of this, and of my wretched journey home. I 
am, however, I thank God, greatly recovered, and on a 
review of the whole, I am unfeignedly grateful to the 
16* 



186 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Father of all mercies as well for what I suffered as what 
I enjoyed during my stay in the metropolis and its neigh- 
borhood. When you see Doctor or Mrs. Gregory, remem- 
ber me most kindly to them ; I shall never forget the 
delightful hours I have spent in their society : every bless- 
ing of time and eternity be theirs ! " 

A month later he wrote : — 

" Since my arrival at Sheffield, though I have neither 
been confined to my bed or room, I have not been in a 
healthy state of feeling for an hour. Colds, coughs, pains 
in the chest, numbness of brain, and numberless hypochon- 
driacal plagues, successively, partially, or altogether, have 
afflicted me ; and at present I expect no relief But the 
wounded spirit and the breaking heart, these are the 
hardest to bear with resignation — resignation to the will 
of God. Not that I feel so much over personal sufiering, 
or rej^iue at my temporal lot, but with these disorders of 
my perishing frame, there comes so much confusion, and 
doubt, and darkness, and desolation into my soul, that the 
powers of my mind seem paralyzed, the affections of my 
heart withered, and every stream of hope or comfort 
passed away. Then, when I can neither think, nor write, 
converse, or even pray with connection and self-jjossession, 
I do indeed deem myself smitten, forsaken of God, and 
afflicted, — worthily smitten, forsaken of God, because I 
will not, cannot, come to him, — and afflicted, because I 
perversely, and yet inevitably, refuse the consolations of his 
Spirit. O what a mystery of woe, what a mystery of ini- 
quity is this ! God deliver me from it, or carry me through 
it, as his wisdom and his goodness shall see fit ! You will, 
perhaj)S, ascribe my recent relapse into this melancholy 



PARKEN'S DEATH. 187 

state to the interest .and anxiety which I must feel in the 
welfare of the person by Av^hom I sent my last unfortunate 
letter. It is true that I have had to suffer and sympathize 
with her and for her, in a very difficult situation in which 
she had ignorantly placed herself, during my visit to Lon- 
don, in which I found her on my return to Sheffield : but 
believe me, if my heart had no other, no heavier weight of 
sorrow upon it, than I must always bear on her account, I 
should be a happy man in comparison Avith the wretch that 
I am : my griefs Ue deeper than disappointment of atlec- 
tion ; it was those griefs that prevented me from ever 
yiekUng to the impulse of that affection, and, unless they 
are soon allayed, must for ever unfit me for the sweetest 
pleasures of this life. Surely you were not hurt by the 
levity of spleen which prompted me, at the time of writing, 
not to give you the address of the bearer of my letter. I 
had no worse motive for this, certainly, than that the com- 
munication would have been of no service either to you or 
her, as you will be convinced when I tell you she was going 
to Mrs. II * * * * 's, at Ilampstead. There, if you have 
either desire or occasion to introduce yourself, at any time 
in the course of two months, by mentioning my name you 
will bo kindly received by both the ladies." 

But the friend to whom these letters were addressed was 
no more. lie died, while on a circuit of professional duty, 
after a short illness, at Aylesbury, a man Avhose talents, in- 
tegrity, and literary culture adorned every station which 
Providence had assigned him. 

" In praise and blame alike sincere, 
But still most kind wlicn most severe." 



188 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

The following letter was addressed to his brother, the 
Rev. Ignatius Montgomery, and his wife : 

" Sheffield, July 27, 1812. 
" My Dear Brother and Sister, 

" You will immediately forgive my fortnight's silence 
at a most interesting and critical juncture, when I inform 
you that I fully expected that on Monday and Tuesday last 
you would have heard both from me and of me, by our 
friend Parken, as I despatched a letter on the Saturday 
preceding to meet him on his return from the circuit, and 
requested him to inform you that I continued so weak in 
body, mdeed so much indisjDOsed, that I had determined to 
try the Buxton waters this week, but that you should hear 
from me before I left Sheffield, Had I not relied upon tliis, 
assuredly I should have written at that time directly to 
you, to congratulate you with gladness of affection on the 
birth of the dear little stranger that has been sent amongst 
ns to add to our number and our felicity. Anxiously and 
earnestly have I longed for this intelligence, and thrice 
welcome it was, though it came when I was in darkness of 
spirit and debility of frame, that made life burthensome 
and death dreadful to me. Do not, I intreat you, as you 
love me, as you desire your own peace, and as you trust in 
God, our common Saviour, do not be alarmed at this ac- 
knowledgment of my state of mind and body, which has 
been the same in a greater or less degree ever since my re- 
turn to Sheffield. I am not despairing ; God is only humb- 
hng me under his mighty hand, and I bow to the chastise- 
ment and kiss the rod that smites me, as I lie in the dust 
of self-abasement and self-abhorrence at his feet. ' God be 
merciful to me a sinner ! ' is my prayer ; and that prayer 
will be answered in his good time, and in his own manner. 
O how mysterious are his judgments, and his ways past 



NAMING A BABY. 189 

finding out ! My dear friend Parken now knows, though 
we know it not, nor can we comprehend it, why he was 
thus unexpectedly removed from us, and he acknowledges 
both the wisdom and the mercy of that awful visitation. 
Three letters this morning brought me the intelligence of 
his premature death, — not premature, I trust, for I am 
persuaded that he was prepared to meet his God, though 
neither he nor we expected the summons would be sent so 
soon. My heart, which these sad tidings rent, has already 
been flowing through two letters to friends on this dis- 
tressing subject, and I will not — indeed I cannot without 
aggravated misery to myself and unnecessary infliction 
upon you — dwell longer on it here. My letter did not 
arrive in time for him either to read or hear read ; there- 
fore my message to you could not be delivered. I thank 
God for his merciful preservation of my dear sister in the 
hour of sorrow, — but her sorrow has been turned into joy. 
O may she hve to bring up the dear child thus happily 
given her, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and 
may that child live to be the comfort of its jDarents by ful- 
filling all their hopes to see- it grow in stature and in favor 
both with God and man ! I cannot object to any name for 
the sweet infant, which those who love it best shall choose 
for it ; but I thought — indeed I made myself almost sure 
— that it would be called 3Iary Agnes. Were not both 
its grandmothers Marys, and is not its mother Agnes ? I 
know no reason, at the same time, why it should not be 
Henrietta, or why I should not love my new niece as well 
by that name as those I have mentioned: 'the rose by 
any other name would smell as sweet.' By whatsoever 
name it shall be called in due season, I have already placed 
its lovely little image in my heart amongst my warmest 
afiections, — and the inscription may be added any time. 



I9a LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

O how would it rejoice me to meet you at Buxton, as I met 
you last year, and spend, as I propose to spend, a fortnight 
there ! I have told you the best and worst, as Ignatius 
desires that I would. Pray for me, dear brother and sister, 
that my faith fail not, — indeed it is hard tried at times. I 
am well pleased that John James has consented to abdicate 
his throne, and that it is so much better filled by one who 
is so much less than he. Kiss both the deposed king and 
the new-crowned queen from Uncle James. Kindest re- 
gards to Robert and his dear family. Farewell! — Youi' 
faithful and affectionate bi'other." 

To Joseph Aston : 

"Sheffield, July 28, 1812. 
"Dear Friexd, 

. . . " Procrastination is the mother of every sin 
of omission of which I am daily guilty, and by which my 
life has run so much to waste, that I may almost say the 
summer is past, and I have scarcely begun to sow for the 
harvest. This, alas ! will apply equally to my temporal 
and spiritual concerns. I am always a day behind time, 
and I fear sometimes that I shall be so at the last, and thus 
lose eternity. Many melancholy considerations that press 
upon my mind, and fill my heart with sadness just now, 
lead insensibly into this train of reflection whenever I take 
up my pen to write to a friend — which indeed is as sel- 
dom, as i^ossible ; for I have been for two months past 
nearly unfit either for society or solitude, for correspond- 
ence or meditation. The month of May I spent in London, 
from whence I returned very ill, and then followed such a 
series of colds and nervous affections as I never expe- 
rienced before with so little intermission ; for I have always 
been subject to these, though hitherto with lucid intervals 



MENTAL DEPRESSION. 191 

that admitted Ijotli of hope and enjoyment. Now, how- 
ever, the evil spirit seems to possess me entirely, and the 
Harp of Sorrow, that once so sweetly soothed the grief it 
could not cure, has almost lost its power to charm. In 
this state of debility and depression, both of mind and 
body, I am induced to try the air and the waters of Bux- 
ton. I expect to set out for that Bethesda to-morrow, 
and stay about a fortnight, earnestly praying, and amidst 
doubts and fears that assail and perplex me at times, still 
trusting that He who gave me life will yet bless me with 
a moderate degree of health, and 'spare me a little longer, 
that I may recover strength before I go hence and am seen 
no more.' Forgive the tone of anguish and complaint this 
letter breathes. I write so seldom to you, that when I do 
write, it ought to be a cordial from my heart poured into 
yours, lightening the one, and refreshing the othei*. I 
wish I could thus cheer and solace you; but, wanting 
comfort myself, how can I rejoice, by my language and 
sentiments, the soul of my friend ? Yet I trust you need 
the kindness of sympathy less than I do, and that you have 
happiness enough and to spare, by looks, and words, and 
deeds of charity to friends so poor in spirit as I am. I 
I know you will bear with me, and therefore I freely trou- 
ble you with the overflowings of my heart, which is truly 
full of bitterness ; yet do not be alatmed for me : only 
imagine, and you will imagine truly, that all those hypo- 
chondriacal and constitutional infirmities which have ' grown 
with my growth, and strengthened with my' weakness^ 
are now upon me in more than their usual measure. These 
will accompany me to my grave, I know ; but whether 
they will hasten my journey thither is only known to Him 
who, for the wisest, best, and most merciful purposes, per- . 
mits them to afilict me." 



192 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

To Buxton the poet went ; and from thence, on the 9th 
of August, he Avrote to decline Aston's invitation to visit 
him, adding: 

" I have no heart for exertion, and no spirits for pleas- 
ure ; otherwise, it would be a great satisfaction to me to 
meet you once more in this world, and to meet you where 
you would be seen to the best advantage — in the bosom 
of your family. Surely we shall meet again in time ; but 
when and where cannot be foreseen. O may we meet in 
eternity, and never part ! " 

A memorial of this visit to Buxton and its vicinity, ex- 
ists in the stanzas entitled 77ie Peak Mountains^ every 
line of which indicates the pensive tone of the poet's mind 
at this time. 

Again he writes to Ignatius : 

" Sheffield, September 4, 1812. 

" My Dear Brother, 

" With your last letter I received three others, all 
announcing the death of the best friend I ever had, or hope 
to have, on earth. I was very ill at the time, and prepar- 
ing to set out for Buxton. This severe and sudden stroke 
laid me lower in the dust than I remember to have been 
at any time before, often and miserably as I have been 
prostrated there amidst the ruins of my hopes. I went to 
Buxton on the Wednesday following, and you will have 
learned already, from the annexed stanzas, in what a for- 
lorn and suffering condition I found myself there. I stayed 
away three weeks ; and since my return, I thank God, my 
unfailing friend and helper in every time of need, I am 
growing stronger and healthier every day. My strength 
and health I consecrate to Him who gave them to me for 



LETTER FROM SOUTHEY. 193 

liis own glory and for my enjoyment. ... I was in 
private lodgings at Buxton, ou the hill, above the Crescent. 
I often thought of you, and commemorated our few walks 
by going them over again. My rambles, however, ex- 
tended further than your eyes themselves ever ventured 
to travel on those wild and melancholy hills, from some of 
which, notwithstanding, I enjoyed transporting prospects. 
But the chief companion of my walks was the spirit of my 
dear lost friend, with whom I held most sweet and mourn- 
ful converse in my thoughts, where he was almost hourly 
present. I am persuaded that he is rejoicing in his happy 
release from this world of temptation and trial in which it 
pleased the Lord to shorten the day of his pilgrimage and 
sorrows. You Avill lament with me, for your own sakes, 
as I do for mine, that so excellent and amiable a com- 
panion should be so early removed, while you and your 
dear Agnes were only beginnhig to know his Avorth. . . . 
Both Agnes and you, as well as Henry [Steinhauer] were 
much beloved and esteemed by him ; and had he been 
longer spared, you Avould have been more and more de- 
lighted with him. His talents and his heart were too 
much concealed by his extreme modesty in everything 
that concerned himself. I never knew a man so truly and 
quietly disinterested. . . . My kindest love to Agnes : 
the same to Robert and his family." 

Southey again writes him : 

"Keswick, October 7, 1812. 
"My Dear Moxtgomeky, 

"You have here the second [he had previously re- 
ceived the first Avhile in London] book of 'Pelaya,' or, as I 
must learn to call it, 'Roderick, the last of the Goths.' I 



194 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

have more pleasure in transcribing it for you than I shall 
have in throwing it before the world ; for though I cast 
my bread upon the waters in full assurance that it will be 
found after many days, it is with a feehng something Uke 
that I should have in setting acorns. In all the prospect, 
the church-yard enters into the foreground. There is 
another thought connected with publication, which tends 
as much to humiliation as it may seem to savor of pride — 
of the thousands who will read my poem, some for the 
pleasure of finding fault with it, but far, very far more un- 
doubtedly for the pleasure it will give them, how very few 
are there who will really be competent to appreciate it ! 
and how frequently have I had occasion to remember the 
point of Yriarte's fable, 'Bad is the censure of the wise — 
the blockhead's praise is worse ! ' But in sending to you 
what lias been produced with passion, and elaborated with 
thought, I know that you will recognize whatever is true 
to nature ; and that thus I shall have my reward. The 
figure of Spain may require a note to point out M'hat a 
Spanish reader Avould instantly perceive — the badge of 
the military orders, the castles and lions of Castile and 
Leon, and the sword of my Cid. 

'•'■Yowv PeaJc 3Iotinta ins make me repine that you did 
not come where you would have found subjects as much 
superior in loveliness as in grandeur. You have managed 
a very difficult stanza with great skill. The last two lines 
are but equal to one alexandrine, therefore objectionable. 
You have been aware of this, and so managed your accents 
that they seldom read as one. The poem is in your own 
true strain : it has the passion, the melancholy, and the 
religious ardor which are the elements of all your ])oetry. 
One of these elements, delightful as it is in such combina- 
tion, I would banish from you if I knew what, like Tobit's 



SOUTIIEY'S CHEERFULNESS. 195 

fumigation, could chase away dark spirits. Oil that I could 
impart to you a portion of that animal cheerfulness which 
I would not exchange for the richest earthly iuheiitance ! 
For me, when those whom I love cause me no sad anxiety, 
the skylark in a summer morning is not more joyous than I 
am ; and if I had wings on my shoulders, I should be up 
with her in the sunshine carolling for pure joy. 

" But you must see how far our mountains overtop the 
Derbyshire hills. The leaves are now beginning to fall — 
come to me, Montgomery, as soon as they reappear, in the 
sweetest season of the year, when opening flowers and 
lengthening days hold out to us every day the hope of a 
lovelier morrow. I am a bondsman from this time till the 
end of April, and must get through, in the intermediate 
time, more work than I like to think of: through it, if no 
misfortune impede or prevent me, I shall get willingly and 
well ; for I know not what it is to be weary of employment. 
Come to me as soon as my holidays begin. You will find 
none of the exhausting hurry of London, but quiet as well 
as congenial society within doors ; and without, everything 
that can elevate the imagination and soothe the heart. 

" I heard of you in London from Miss Betham, Avho saw 
you at Mrs. Montague's. Thank you for inquiring about 
the Missionary Reports. If there are only the two first 
numbers [qy. volumes?] out of print, I will send to London 
for the rest, and have a few blank leaves placed at the be- 
ginning, in which to w^rite an abstract of what is deficient, 
whenever I can borrow a perfect copy. 

" My next poem will have something to do wnth mission- 
aries, and will relate to the times and country of Eliot, the 
apostle of the Nituencer Indians, and the man who trans- 
lated the Bible into the most barbarous language that was 
ever yet reduced to grammatical rules. The chief person- 



196 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

age is to be a Quaker, and tlie story will hinge upon the 
best principles of Quaker philosophy, if those words may 
be allowed to exist in combination. The object is to repre- 
sent a man acting under the most trying circumstances in 
that manner which he feels and believes to be right, re- 
gardless of consequences ; and in my story the principle of 
action will prove as instrumental at last to the preservation 
of the individual, as it would be to the happiness of the 
whole community if ' the kingdom ' were ' come.' 

" Do not let your poem languish longer. I, who want 
spurring myself, would fain spur you on to a quicker pro- 
gress. I advance in these things wdth a pace so slow and 
so unlike the ardor of former times, that I should suspect 
more changes of temperament and loss of activity than 
eight-and-thirty years ought to bring with them, if I did 
not find or fancy a solution in the quantity of prose labor 
that falls to my lot. Time has been when I have written 
fifty, eighty, or a hundred lines before breakfast ; and I re- 
member to have composed twelve hundred (many of them 
among the best I ever did produce) in a week. A safer 
judgment has occasioned this change; still time may have 
had some share m it. I do not now love autumn as well as 
spring, nor the setting sun like the life and beauty of the 
morning. God bless you !" 



CHAPTER XI. 

"the world before the flood" published — NEW INTERESTS^ 
ENGAGES IN RELIGIOUS LABORS — SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION — BIBLE 
SOCIETY — HIS FIRST SPEECH — CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS BROTHER 
IGNATIUS — RE-ADMISSION TO THE MORAVIAN CHURCH — DAWNING 
PEACE — SUNDAY-SCHOOL LABORS. 

In the spring of 1813, TliQ World before the ^oodwas 
published, prefaced by a little poem to his departed friend 
which thus touchingly closed : 

" My task is o'er ; and I have wrought 

With self-rewarding toil, 
To raise the scattered seeds of thought 

Upon a desert soil : 
Oh for soft winds and clement showers I 
I seek not fruit, I planted flowers. 

" Those flowers I trained, of many a hue, 

Along thy path to bloom ; 
And little thought that I must strew 

Their leaves upon thy tomb : 
Beyond that tomb I lift mine eye ; 
Thou art not dead — thou couldst not die." 

It was the design of the author, as he tells us in The 

World before the Flood, " to present a similitude of events, 
17* 



198 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

that might be imagined to have happened in the first ages 
of the Avorld, in which such Scripture characters as are in- 
troduced would probably have acted and spoken as they 
are here made to act and speak. The story is told as a 
parable only ; and its value in this view must be determined 
by its religious influence. Truth is the essence, though not 
the name. Truth is the spirit, though not the letter." 

This poem, which is his longest, though inferior in unity 
and finish to Milton's master-work, with which it was some- 
times unwisely compared, contains passages whose descrip- 
tive beauty, harmonious flow, and quiet earnestness, disclose 
some of the genuine excellences of the divine art. 

"It not only satisfied the large exjDectations of his 
friends," we are told, " but elevated his name in the rank 
of those whom, at that time, the reading public delighted 
to honor." 

But it is not through his larger poems that Montgomery 
will be best and widest known to posterity. These are 
indeed memorials of the quality of his genius, and the 
drift of his soul ; it is his hymns and minor poems, the over- 
flowings of a heart full of poetic insight and genuine feel- 
ing, which will most endear his name to future genera- 
tions. 

His friend, Mrs. Montague, says : 

"We have The World before the Flood, — but we have 
also the World after the Flood; and it is impossible, though 
I oppose my nine children, and Basil fences himself with 
bankruptcy papers, that we can always keep it out. You 
will be with us in the shades of Bolton [Abbey], and your 
own Elysium is not more beautiful ; there we shall enjoy 
your work." 

And there they did enjoy it : his correspondent was in 
raptures with the poem : 



RELIGIOUS LABORS. 199 

"I have read The World be/ore the Flood again and 
again. I do not know any character so sublime as Enoch ; 
it has the grandeur and awful simphcity of Michael Angelo 
— I borrow my comjiarison from a sister art, for I know 
nothing like it in poetry. Why did you include in the 
volume any of your Prison Amusements, to bring us back 
to earth, and even cast us into prison ? " 

The painfulness of the anxiety with which he waited for, 
and received the verdict of the public upon his works, is 
somewhat abated. Years had naturally moderated expec- 
tation and tamed the passions; but more than this, other 
interests were engaging his affections, drawing him away 
from himself, and offering him that kind of labor which the 
spiritual exigencies of his soul most needed. 

From temperament and bodily infirmities, Montgomery 
was prone to look upon the dark side of all events ; and 
his religious character, of course, partook in some measure 
of the same element ; his soul struggled long in darkness 
and despair, and only slowly did he appropriate to himself 
the comforts of tire Christian faith. In such a state of 
mind, wrestling with inward doubts, and lingering under 
the shadows of Sinai, the new religious organizations of the 
day, instinct ^viih. a social, active, and joyous Christian life, 
were precisely what was needed to draw off and strengthen 
his religious affections ; and by giving liim a work to do, 
enabled him to gain, through love to man, a more personal 
consciousness of love to the Redeemer of men. 

TVe are glad therefore to find him engaging, heart and 
hand, in the new religious movements Avhich are stirring 
England; those which recognized no denominational dif- 
ferences, but iinited all in a common bond, Montgomery 
especially clung to. His broad and catholic sj^irit em- 
braced all who loved the Lord, under that simple, and yet 



200 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

significant name — Christian. " Life's poor distinctions 
vanished here." 

" Our Saviour and his flock appeared 
One Shepherd and one Fold." 

At the first anniversary of the Sunday-school Union at 
Sheffield, Montgomery is on the platform, and for the first 
time appears as a public speaker. The associations of the 
occasion evidently animate and arouse him. 

" It is good for us to be here," he says, " even as it was 
good for the disciples to be on the mount when their Master 
was transfigured before them, and appeared in his glory, no 
longer mere man, but God manifest in the flesh. And how 
shall we better employ these delightful moments than in. 
inquiring, and profiting by the result of the inquiry, — 
'Wherein consists the happiness of heaven?' The happi- 
ness of heaven consists in two things, — for these compre- 
hend all that pertauis to happiness, — the enjoyment of 
God, and the communion of saints. And wherein consists 
happiness on earth ? The answer is the same, — in the 
enjoyment of God, and the communion of saints. No 
other enjoyment or communion, Avhere these are excluded, 
can merit the name, or give more than the semblance of 
haj^piness. It becomes us then to nourish those social, 
endearing, exalting afiections, that draw us together on 
occasions like these, and unite us in bonds of Christian 
friendship. If we love one another with pure hearts fer- 
vently, we shall love God supremely. If we fulfill the 
first commandment, we cannot fail in the second ; if we 
love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our 
mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength, then, 
and not tiU then, shall we love our neighbor as ourself. 



HIS FIKST SPEECH. 201 

In the worship of God there is but one soul, one voice, 
one song among the ransomed of the Lord on Mount 
Zion, ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain ;' and where- 
fore do these account him worthy ? Because ' he hath 
redeemed us from every /cindred and tongue, and people 
and oiatlon, and made us unto our God kings and jiriests.' 
Hence we perceive that the communion of saints, even 
in the enjoyment of God, consummates the full, yet forever 
increasing fehcity of heaven. Let this communion, then, 
be diligently cultivated among Christians of every name 
and persuasion : let this felicity be begun in time, and it 
will be perfected through eternity." 

Of the meeting the Iris gave a vivid account, and it 
would seem to have been an occasion of unusual interest. 

Mr. Bennett occupied the chair, and with him henceforth 
we find the poet associated in manifold labors of Christian 
love. A few months later, taking part in the formation 
of a Methodist Missionary Society, in Sheffield, he thus 
expresses himself: 

" In the Bible Society all names and distinctions of sects 
arc blended till they are lost, like the prismatic colors in 
a ray of pure and perfect light : in the missionary work, 
though di\ided, they are not discordant; but, like the 
same colors, displayed and harmonized in the rainbow, 
they form an arch of glory ascending on the one hand 
from earth to heaven, and on the other descending from 
heaven to eaitli — a bow of promise, a covenant of peace, 
a sign that the storm of wrath is passing away, and the 
Sun of Righteousness, with healing in his wings, breaking 
forth on all nations." 

Extracts from a letter to his brother Ignatius and his 
wife on the death of a daughter, disclose more of his inner 
life: 



202 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

"Sheffield, August 11, 1813. 
" My Dear Brother aotd Sister, 

" I believe that this letter will find you in that sweet 
and humble state of resignation to the divine will, which 
best becomes those who sorrow not as they do who are 
without hope ; and since the bitterness of death is past, 
and the violence of grief subsiding into patient endurance, 
I may now come into your quiet dwelling in this accus- 
tomed form, and say, ' Peace be unto you.' The infant, 
He Avho lent it to you has reclaimed ; and I doubt not 
that, to borrow a Scriptui'e phrase, he has received his 
own with usury, at his coming, on this occasion. Remem- 
ber that you occupied but till he came ; he is come, and 
though your treasure is taken from you for awhile, it is 
only laid up in heaven in eternal security for you, and will 
be restored to you in the day of the Lord, when she 
whom you loved so dearly and mourn so bitterly will be 
one of the brightest jewels in your crown of righteousness. 
I say this under the perfect persuasion that you faithfully 
fulfilled your duty as jDarents to this little saint thus early 
translated, yet in good time — for it was the Lord's time 
— to the kingdom of her heavenly Father. This prov- 
idence you both feel has drawn you nearer to God ; and 
the nearer you have been drawn to Him, have you not 
been the more strengthened and comforted, and submissive 
to His will, till at length you had no will of your own, and 
were enabled to rejoice amidst your afiiiction, in hope of 
the glory that shall hereafter be revealed, of which Hen- 
rietta is already a partaker, and to which you, though later 
than she, shall finally be advanced? Since we met in 
London in May last year, this dear child has been born 
into our family, has lived in it her full appointed time, and 
is entered into rest, even before she entered into conflict 



CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 203 

•U'ith sin. I had a sister once, but she was in heaven "be- 
fore I ajipeared on earth ; with the lovely idea which I 
form of her, the idea of sweet Henrietta shall now be 
associated in my mind — not only in my imagination but 
in my affections ; for, though I never saw either, they live 
and they will live forever, where — O God grant it ! — 
where I would be too, when I have put off all the sorrows 
of mortality. These two little ones are perhaps now com- 
l^anions in paradise. Henrietta — you know not how much 
she learned on earth — may already have met both her 
mother's and her father's parents at the footstool of the 
throne of the Redeemer — for that is their place even in 
heaven ; and I can imagine how many welcome things she 
has told them concerning Agnes and Ignatius. Me she 
never knew : it is well, for so can she have nothing to say 
which a spirit in the body might imagine would grieve 
even a spirit in glory to hear. My dear brother and sister, 
how little have you to mourn for in the loss of a child so 
innocent, because so young ! and how much cause to re- 
joice, under that loss, that she is rescued forever from the 
evil which is in this world, and the world which is to come ! 
At this moment, while I am writing in a distant part of the 
kingdom, you are prei:)aring to commit the precious dust 
of that redeemed one to the grave. In spirit I am with 
you. When that dust shall rise again at the last day, O 
may we rejoice together ! I must tear my hand away from 
this subject, or it Avill fill my letter ; and I have a few 
things to say concerning myself I have for several weeks 
past undergone sore trials and buffetings in my own soul. 
At times it has seemed as if the Lord had forsaken me ; as 
if His ' mercy were clean gone forever ; ' not because He 
was changed, but because I was so heartless and cold, and 
alienated from Him. I have indeed been much indisposed 



204 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

from similar weakness and disorder as troubled me twelve 
months ago ; and I lind that when the consolations of the 
Lord are most needful in illness and infirmity of body, they 
are hardest to seek ; thongh the heart is alarmed, and the 
conscience clamorous, the spirit is weak, and the tempter 
has a tenfold power to dismay and cast down the sinner, 
who either has not known the Saviour, or having known 
Him, has lost his confidence in Him. I am a very forlorn 
being in many, many respects. Since I left the Brethren 
I have never dared to join myself with any other com- 
munion of Christians, and I want fellowship of this kind 
more than in any other way. With Calvinists and Meth- 
odists I frequently do associate, but I have not perfect 
freedom Avith either. Good men of both sects show me 
much love and kindness ; and I cannot help feeling that in 
their charity they greatly overvalue me, and treat me in a 
way that makes me little indeed in my own eyes in pro- 
portion as I appear excellent in theirs. At the same time 
I lose many blessings, which can only be enjoyed in Chris- 
tian communion ; and my soul is starved for want of these. 
"When we meet, Ave will talk more unreservedly on this 
subject than we have ever yet done, if I can find grace to 
open my lips upon it. . . . Remember me very kindly 
to Henry [Steinhaur]. God, our Saviour, bless and com- 
fort you ; and may John James be all to you that both 
Henrietta and he Avere before ! FareAvell." 

Unwilling longer to remain without the pale of some 
visible communion, and conscious of a groAving want for 
the peculiar privileges of a church fellowship, he deter- 
mined to seek readmission into the Moravian congregation 
at Fulneck ; and on his forty-third birth-day wrote to the 
presiding minister to that effect. 



REUNION WITH THE MORAVIANS. 205 

"I Avill not delay informing yon," was the cordial re- 
sponse of the good father, " that in our Elders' Conference 
to-day, our Saviour approved of your being now admitted 
a member of the Brethren's church. I cordially rejoice in 
this, and present my best wishes, united with those of my 
fellow-laborers, to you on this occasion. Return, then, my 
dear brother, with your whole heart, to the Shepherd and 
Bishop of your soul, inasmuch as he has manifested himself 
peculiarly as the Head and Ruler of the Brethren's unity 
— return to that fold in which your dear late father lived 
and died, which counts a brother of yours among its useful 
ministers, and in the midst of which you enjoyed, in the 
period of early youth, spiritual blessings such as you pro- 
bably have not forgotten. Our faith you know ; the Bible 
we acknowledge as our only rule of doctrine and Chris- 
tian practice ; and our constitutional regulations, Avhich 
form a brotherly agreement among ourselves, you are not 
unacquainted with. More particularly we may perhaps 
treat of these things, when we shall see you here. Renew 
your vows of love to our crucified, now glorified Redeemer, 
and may he preserve you blameless in the bundle of life 
until the day of his coming !" 

His feelings on the occasion are thus described to Ig- 
natius : 

" On my birth-day (November 4), after many delays, and 
misgivings, and repentings, I wrote to Fulneck for read- 
mission into the Brethren's congregation ; and on Tuesday, 
December 6, the lot fell to me in that pleasant place, and on 
Sunday last I was publicly invested with my title to that 
goodly heritage. The dreadfully tempestuous weather, 
and severe indisposition from a cold, prevented me from 
being personally present when the congregation acknowl- 
edged me as one of her members, and recommended me 
18 



206 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

with prayer and thanksgiving to Him who is especially her 
Head and Elder. To him and to his people I have again 
devoted myself, and may he make me faithful to my 
covenant with him, as I know he will be faithful to his 
covenant with me ! Rejoice with me, my dearest fiiends, 
for this unspeakable privilege bestowed on so unworthy 
and ungrateful a prodigal as I have been. Tell all the 
good brethren and sisters whom I knew at Bristol, this 
great thing which the Lord hath done unto me. O, how 
glad shall I be at some future time to be preserved in life 
by his merciful care to meet as one of them in your 
chapel!" 

Or more naturally do they flow in the beautiful lines of 
the hymn : 

" People of the living GoJ, 

I have sought the world around, 
Paths of sin and sorrow trod, 

Peace and comfort nowhere found. 
Now to you my spirit turns — 

Turns, a fugitive unblest ; 
Brethren, where your altar burns, 

Oh, receive me into rest. 

"Lonely I no longer roam, 

Like the cloud, the wind, the wave ; 
Where you dwell shall be my home, 

Where you die shall be my grave. 
Mine the God whom you adore ; 

Your Redeemer shall be mine ; 
Earth can fill my heart no more — 

Every idol I resign." 

This step had a visible influence upon Montgomery's 
character : it defined his future course ; brought the dis- 
cordant elements of his life into harmony ; gave strength 



SUNDAY-SCHOOL LABORS. 207 

and tone to his influence ; and in the growing graces of 
Christian exjjeiience, he found that peace and comfort 
which the world had so signahy failed to give him. 

Immediately he entered upon a life of active service in 
his Master's cause ; and he found God's gifts only enjoyed — 

" When used as talents lent; 
Those talents only well employee], 
When in his service spent." 

The Sunday-school cause he warmly espoused. Besides 
more general labors in its behalf, he entered the Red Hill 
Sunday-school, under the charge of the Methodists, as a 
teacher, where his faithful and affectionate counsels, 
"armed by faith and winged by prayer," were greatly 
blest. 

Nor were his teachings confined to Red Hill ; for his 
sweet Sabbath-school hymns are sung every Sabbath in 
this country and old England, in all those precious nur- 
series of the church, where 

"Children of the King of kings 
Are training for the skies." 

The autumn of one year, Montgomery, with Mr. Ben- 
nett, visited forty schools in the embrace of the Sheffield 
Sunday-school Union, the report of which, drawn up by 
the poet, shows if " the world could never give the bliss 
for which he sighed," a foretaste of it was found in the 
Master's work. 

" On many, on all," says the writer, " of these pleasant 
Sabbath-days' journeys. He who walked unknown with 
the two disciples to Emmaus accompanied us, not, we trust, 
unknown, though unseen ; and while He communed with 



208 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

our spirits and opened the Scriptures, in the fulfilment of 
their prophecies concerning Himself at this period by the 
way, we felt our hearts burn within us, till we could de- 
clare from experience, in his own memorable words — 
' Blessed are they which have not seen and yet have be- 
lieved.' ... In these Sabbath walks, while we enlarged 
our knowledge of the adjacent district, its mountains and 
valleys, its tracts of waste and cultivation, its woods, its 
waters, and its inhabited places, till every hamlet was 
endeared to our remembrance by some particular aud 
delightful associations, we were more and more deei^ly 
impressed with the utility and necessity of Sunday-schools. 
. . . We observed that in every neighborhood where 
the Gospel was preached [mostly by itinerants] if a school 
was established first, a chapel soon arose within its in- 
closure, or at its side ; and where the chapel [or the 
church] it might now be added first appeared, the Sunday- 
school followed as its necessary accompaniment." 



CHAPTER XII. 

LETTER FROM SOUTHEY — SARAH GALES's DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND — 
LOTTERY ADVERTISEMENTS — APPEAL FOR MORAVIAN MISSIONS IX 
GREENLAND — LITERARY PROFITS — DEATH OF ELIZABETH GALES — 
DEPUTATION OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY — DEPARTURE OF 
GEORGE BENNETT — CORRESPONDENCE — MANIFOLD LABORS — " DAISY 
IN INDIA" — CALL FROM SOUTHEY — LABORS FOR THE CHIMNEY- 
SWEEPS — AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN AT HART'S-IIEAD. 

" The first thing I have to say," writes Southey, under 
date of May 29, 1815, "relates to Wordsworth. I put 
into his hands your review of the ' Excursion,' and he de- 
sired me to tell you how much he was gratified by it, — by 
the full and liberal praise which it accorded him, — by the 
ability and discrimination which were shown ; but, above 
all, by the sj^irit which it breathed, which is so unUke the 
prevailing tone of criticism. 

" Secondly, — but first in importance, — now that the 
fine season is arrived, will you fulfill in summer the purpose 
which was frustrated in autumn, and come to visit me ? 
Neither you nor I need be reminded of the uncertainty of 
life ; we are now neither of us young men, and if we suffer 
year after year to pass by, we may, perhaps, never know 
each other in the body. I want to have the outward and 
visible Montgomery in my mind's eye — the form and 
tangible uuago of my friend. Come, and come speedily. 

There is a coach from Leeds to Kendal, and one from Ken- 

18* 



210 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

dal here. Write, and fix the time for coming. Words- 
worth, who is now hi London, will probably be home in 
about a fortnight, and both he and Lloyd (with whom you 
will be much interested) are very desirous of seeing you. 

" The apprehensions under which you last wrote are fully 
confirmed, and Europe is once more involved in war by the 
ambition of a single individual, whom I verily believe to 
have accumulated a heavier load of guilt upon his soul than 
any human being ever did before him. I am sorry to see 
the Jacobins act with him ; for I would fain have believed, 
that, with all their dreadful errors, they set out with a 
noble prmciple ; but they are now proving that their only 
impulse at present is a feeling of personal hatred to the 
Bourbons, which Louis XVIII. is far from deserving. I 
look to the war with anxiety, but not with fear ; on our 
part it is so just, so called for by every proper feeling and 
sound principle, that nothing can oppose it, except that vile 
infatuation which has made a few persons cling to Bona- 
parte through all his crimes. 

"I thought you would be pleased with the party whom 
I directed to you in the autumn. . . . The sale of 'Roderick' 
has exceeded my expectations ; a third edition is going to 
press. I have seen no review of it, but can perceive more 
faults than the most malicious critic will point out ; and I 
have a happy indifference to criticism, which proceeds, I 
suppose, as much from temperament as jDhilosophy. Write 
and tell me when you will come. Remember me to Mr. 
Gilbert when you see him. I shall rejoice to see him again. 
God bless you." 

Twenty years having elapsed since the flight of Mr. 
Gales to the United States, Sarah, the younger of his three 
sisters, decided to cross the waters and visit her brother at 
Washington. 



DENUNCIATION OF LOTTERIES. 211 

Montgomery accompanied her to Liver2:)ool, and on being 
asked, after ber departure, bow be felt, repUed, "As baj^py 
as despair can make me." Tbe answer suggested a love 
beyond a brother's, — yet it is believed nothing existed but 
the most cordial fraternal affection ; and, as brother and 
sister they formed a pleasant household until death di- 
vided them. 

An increasing serenity vre perceive stealing over his 
mind. Called to feel some pecuniary embarrassment, in 
consequence of an unfaithful partner, he tells us: "Any 
suffering, of mind or body, I have long ago learnt is pref- 
erable to the anguish of a wounded conscience ; and, Avhile 
I can keep myself clear of this evil in secular afihirs, I 
ought to bear any other affliction with patience, yea, with 
grateful resignation to the will of Him who is wiser, and 
better, and kinder than any earthly friend could be to me, 
and therefore to whom, and to whose disposal, I may with 
confidence entrust all that I have, and all that I am." 

No man, indeed, was more prompt to sacrifice pecuniary 
considerations to moral conviction, when they were in con- 
flict, than Montgomery. 

That the lottery system was nothing more or less than 
legalized gambling, had already forced itself upon thinking 
men, and Montgomery, as Ave have seen, had himself re- 
linquished the sale of tickets at his ofiice. But this was 
only cutting off the left hand of a profitable sin, while with 
the right he was still accepting the hire of iniquity. The 
best support of the Tris accrued from lottery advertise- 
ments; indeed it might seem questionable if the paper 
could be maintained at all without the generous pay which 
came in from this source. 

Mr. Roberts had long waged war upon this evil, and 
being now determined to attack the state lottery, a re- 



212 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

venue recruiting business, he was anxious to enlist tlie Iris 
fully in the cause. The glai'ing inconsistency of such a 
course, its editor keenly felt. " Renounce all connection 
with the accursed thing !" exclaimed his friend. 

" The counsel was hard to a person in my circumstances," 
the poor editor tells us ; " conscience and cui^idity had a 
sharp conflict ; but the battle was not a drawn one ; the 
better jmnciple prevailed, and after the autumn of 1816, I 
never admitted another lottery advertisement into my paper. 
Nor did I ever for one moment repent the sacrifice." 

Thus unfettered, the Iris took a leading stand in holding 
up the system to public reprobation. Both pamphlets and 
poetry issued from his press, aimed chiefly against those 
ministers and their supporters in Parliament who persisted 
in resorting to this means for raising public money. Mr. 
Roberts wrote a satirical poem, and Montgomery Some 
Thoughts oji Wlieels, both of which had the celebrity of 
fitness at the time. A petition to Parliament from Shef- 
field was also gotten up through their influence ; and their 
indefatigable zeal contributed much towards the removal 
of the " greatest i:>lague that ever infested the country in 
the shape of a tax upon the poverty, the mox'als, and the 
happiness of the people." 

The state lottery was relinquished in 1824. 

As for the Iris, we do not learn that its existence was at 
all jeopardized by its manliness. Not the first or last in- 
stance, when taking counsel of our conscience has proved 
better than our fears. 

In 1818, great destitution prevailed among the Mora- 
vian missions in Greenland, which called forth an earnest 
appeal in their behalf in the columns of the Iris. The 
working missionaries of this inhospitable country, if they 
endured severe privations for the Gospel's sake, reaped 



THE GREENLAND MISSIONS. 213 

also a precious harvest from its icy slopes. The simple 
piety of the Greenlanders makes a shining record in the 
annals of the chm'ch. Although there were no Moravian 
congregations in or aromid the immediate vicmity of Shef- 
field, there were warm Christian hearts which responded 
to Montgomery's call, and in a few weeks nearly £130, 
with a great variety of clothing and other useful articles, 
flowed into his hands. 

" These gifts," said he, " have been altogether voluntary, 
in the best sense of the term. The purest produce of tho 
olive is the oil which distills freely from the gentlest press- 
ure of its fruit ; the most precious juice of the grape is that 
which flows from the thick cluster, heaped abundantly 
together, without any other compulsion than their own ripe 
weight and bursting fulness. The wine and oil which the 
' dear English people^ have thus poured into the wounds of 
the poor Greenlanders, perishing by the way-side, are the 
purest and most jDrecious of their kind." 

" Thank you for the jT/v's," writes Southey. " I enclose a 
one pound bill (more according to my means than my will) 
for the poor Greenlanders, and I will endeavor to do them 
better service by sketching — if I am permitted — a history 
of the mission in the Quarterly Review. I have Egede and 
Crantz at hand, and will write for the periodical accounts. 
I have frequent cause to regret that the first volumes of 
these most interesting records are not to be procured. 

" It is very long since I have written you ; forgive 
me and tell me so soon. I am closely emj^loyed, and, 
as usual, upon many things. A work which interests me 
greatly at present is the ' Life of Wesley,' upon such a 
scale as to comprise the history of Methodism abroad and 
at home, with no inconsiderable part of the religious his- 
tory of this country for the last hundred years. You know 



214 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

enough of my intellectual habits to knoAv my love of pur- 
suing a subject in its ramifications. Just at this time I am 
drawing up a succmct account of the origin and economy 
of the establishment of Herrnhut — a necessary part of that 
chapter which is entitled 'Wesley in Germany.' No part 
of "Wesley's conduct is so little creditable to him as that 
which relates to the Moravians. At first he submitted 
himself to them in a manner unworthy of his vmderstand- 
ing — as in the affair of his intended marriage with Sophia 
Cowston ; and still more with regard to William Law ; and 
W'hen he separated fi-om them, he did not for a long time 
render them common justice ; but even in some degree 
sanctioned the abominable calumnies with which they Avere 
assailed. He became wiser and more charitable as he grew 
older. I have traced the progress of his mind with great 
care throughout his writings : he outgrew all his extrav- 
agances ; but it was not easy to disown them all, 

" Is there no hojje of tempting you into this country ? 
Spring is coming on, and you would render me a bodily 
service by drawing me aAvay from the desk and the fire- 
side to the mountain valleys and the hill-tops. I am not a 
man to make insincere j^rofessions : it would give me a 
heartfelt pleasure to see you here. The Leeds coach runs 
to Kendal, and from Kendal there is a morning stage 
every day to Keswick. Come and see me, Montgomery, 
that we may talk together of this world and the next." 

Montgomery's present interest in behalf of the mission 
quickened into life the long dormant plan of a poem, 
located in those ice-bound regions; and in the spring of 
1819 appeared Greenland^ emi^hatically a missionary poem, 
embalming the memory of the devoted men who 
" Planted successfully sweet Sharon's rose 
On icy plains and in eternal snows." 



LITERARY PROFITS. 215 

" There never v/as an age," lie says, " in wliich more 
good poetry was written than the present, or in which 
poetical talent was better rewarded by its true patrons, 
the readers of poetry ; but this very circumstance renders 
it exceedingly difficult to command attention and secure 
admiration. Byron and Moore — to say nothing of Scott, 
Wordsworth and Campbell — carry all before them ; and 
I am not disposed to quarrel with them or the public that 
I am left so far behind in talent and popularity ; though I 
cannot read the works of either without lamenting the 
general character of their poetry. If they are always as 
beautiful, they are sometimes as terrible, as the serpent 
that beguiled Eve. Byron, indeed, is no man, as men are 
now-a-days — he is one of Nature's prodigious births ; and 
more original, powerful, and sweet, with all his wildness 
and barbarism, and dissonance, than all his living brethren 
put together ; and among the dead I can find nothing like 
him, though a few may be equal, or superior, taking them 
all in all." 

Montgomery certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied 
with his share of litei'ary profit ; for we learn up to this 
time that, besides owning the copyright of bis poems, he 
had received £1,600 from Longman & Co., with good 
reason to expect that his new volume would in two years 
yield him from £300 to £400, and £100 yearly for some 
time afterwards. 

"Weeks, months, and years pass by, filled with wholesome 
industries. Editor and author, an active citizen, ready to 
interest himself in everything which can promote the wel- 
fare of his town ; a judicious friend to the poor ; an earnest 
co-laborer in many of the beneficial enterprises of the day, 
his life was one of increasing usefulness and happiness. 

Sanatory reforms he bravely battled for ; public events 



216 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

he impartially noticed ; wliilG all along his path little poems, 
like way-side flowers, are sjjriuging, commemorative of the 
loves, and joys, and falling tears which meet him on the 
road. 

Writing to his brother Ignatius, he says : 

" At this time of the year I am full of employment with 
Bible, Missionary, Tract, and Sunday-school Societies, 
which seem rather to belong to a minister of the Gospel 
than a printer and a poet : my tongue and my pen have 
continual engagements to meet. I feel at home and happy 
in the work, though frequently the flesh is weak when the 
spirit is most willing; and whatever temptations I may 
have to vanity, — and with such I am surrounded, — be- 
sides the traitor within my bosom, like Satan at the ear of 
Eve, sometimes suggesting presumptuous and sometimes 
desponding thoughts of myself, I have trials and experience 
both from without and within enough to humble me every 
day, and every hour of every day, especially when I am in 
most danger of growing giddy and proud. In Passion 
week I went to Fulneck, and enjoyed the holy communion 
on the anniversary of that night on Avhich our Lord was 
betrayed. It was a blessed season, because it was a heart- 
searching one; Good Friday also was made exceedingly 
sweet and solemn to my soul, though I staggered some- 
times in bearing the cross up the rugged steep of Calvary ; 
but I was borne up by the right hand of Him whom I ac- 
companied there." 

He seemed, indeed, striving to carry out the spirit of his 
soul-stirring hymn : 

" Sow in the morn thy seed, 
At eve hold not thy hand ; 
To doubt and fear give thou no heed, 
Broad-cast it o'er the land. 



DEATH OF ELIZABETH GALES. 217 

" Beside all waters sow, 

The highway furrows stock ; 
Drop it where thorns and thistles grow, 
Scatter it on the rock." 

In February, 1821, occurred the first breach in the family 
circle, of which, for thirty years, he had formed a jmrt. 
Elizabeth Gales was not, for God took her. " Soft be the 
turf on thy dear breast," is the mournful plaint of the poet- 
brother. But affection, Avinging beyond and above the 
grave, exclaims: 

" No — live while those who love thee live, 

The sainted sister of our heart; 
And thought to thee a form shall give 

Of all thou wast, and all thou art : — 
Of all thou luast, when from tliine eyes 

The latest beams of kindness shone ; 
Of all thou art, when faith descries 

Thy spirit bowed before the throne." 

" Tiiis day I have experienced another bereavement," he 
writes to a friend. " My dear and honored friend, Mr. 
George Bennett, left SlaefReld, on his proposed visit to Ota- 
heite and other islands in the South Seas, whence, if re- 
stored to us, he cannot be expected to return in less than 
four or five years at the earliest. What may happen to 
him or to us in that long period — long to look forward, 
though but like as many days to look backward — who can 
foresee, when we know not what an hour may bring forth ? 
To be prepared at every moment to meet our God is man's 
highest wisdom. May He in whose hands are the hearts 
of all men, so rule and influence ours, that we all, whether 
at Scarborough, at Sheffield, or at Otaheite, may be found, 
19 



218 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

when lie comes, watching unto prayer ! Then shall it be 
well with us here, and well with us hereafter." 

The London Missionary Society, now nearly twenty-five 
years in vigorous operation, wished to send a deputation 
to visit their more important stations, particularly those 
among the South Sea Islands. Fit men for such an em- 
bassy, the directors had long been seeking. At length, 
George Bennett, Esq., Montgomery's intimate friend, of- 
fered his services, which were gladly accepted, and with 
him was associated Rev. Daniel Tyreman, minister of an 
Independent Chapel in the Isle of "Wight. 

Montgomery's " one word of advice " on the occasion, 
so seasonable to nip in the bud too sanguine hopes, with 
their bitter fruit, we let drop on these pages : 

*'Be determined, my friend, through grace, not to he 
offended at small things, and not to despise small things. 
Remember that you are not going to build, but to ^ylant. 
Do not expect then to see great effects produced under 
your eye." 

The departure of his friend from Sheffield deeply afiectcd 
him, and the susceptibility of his soul for the tenderest 
emotions of friendship are afiectingly revealed in the fol- 
lowing letter: 

" Fulneck, near Leeds, April 2, 1821. 
"My Dear Fkiend, 

" I write to you from this place, lest I should have 
no other opportunity of communicating with you before 
you leave this country. I must, however, be brief Your 
aflfectionate letter, Avritten on the Friday after you left 
Sheffield, did not reach me till last Wednesday. Into 
all your painful yet transjDorting feelings on quitting the 
place of your birth, and where the Lord for so many 



LETTER TO MR. BENNETT. 219 

years both blessed you and made you a blessing, !• en- 
tered with dee]) and lively emotion. Of aU who have 
suffered loss, and loss not soon to be replaced, by your 
departure, mine must be the greatest bereavement, so far 
as refers to the intercommunion of personal friendship, 
and, on my part, the frequent and inestimable tokens of 
kindness which you were wont to bestow upon me, un- 
worthy as I may have been of your distinguishing favor, 
and little as it was m my power to offer in return, except 
the grateful acceptance of your good offices. The Lord, 
who put it into your heart and your jDower thus to be- 
nefit me. Himself reward you for having been, in this 
respect at least, a faithful steward of what lie conamitted 
to you for my profit. He now sends you^ forth to his 
servants among the heathen, — yea, to the heathen them- 
selves. — rwith your hands laden, with the fruits of his love 
in your heart, to disj^ense to them, as you have done to 
me and thousands in this land, his own gifts. May He 
keep you as diUgent and upright, and humble and per- 
severing, Avith all faith, and hope, and charity, "whither 
you are going, as where you have been ! and may not 
only the living in the lUtermost parts of the earth, but 
generations unborn, rise up to call you blessed — blessed 
of the Lord, — for to Him give all the glory! — with as 
much reason as I do at this day, and as I shall do when 
I meet you at the judgment seat of Christ! Meet you 
there! Yes, indeed, there we shall meet; may it be on 
his right hand, — or, if I fail, there may we be parted 
for ever, and you go into life eternal ! But of such a 
separation who can think without fear and trembling? 
It need not he, I know it need not he ; then daily let us 
pray that it may not he. The text which I twice opened 
at AVincobank, when we were last there, often recurs to 



220 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

my mind : — ' "Watch, therefore, and pray al'U'ays, that ye 
may be accounted worthy to escape those things that 
shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man ! ' 
Let this text be a mutual watchword between you and 
me ; let us often meet iu this passage of Scripture, and, 
as disciples of the Lord Jesus, let us secure this evidence 
to ourselves, that we do love Him, by kecj^ing this his 
commandment. I intended that this letter should only 
be from my head, and consist of a few dry lines of I'emark, 
or common-place matters ; but my heart, which seemed 
a sealed-up fountain when I began, has broken out from 
its fullness, and overflowed the greater part of my j^apei*. 
The communication, busy as you are, will not be less wel- 
come on that account. 

" But I must notice a few points of business. I have 
discharged the bill at Mr. Carver's : he expressed himself 
very kindly respecting you ; and, indeed, the very bricks 
ia the walls, and the stones in the streets of Sheffield seem 
affected by your removal, and wish you well, ■ — or would 
do so, if they could wish anything." 

On May 22d, 1821, the deputation sailed from Graves- 
end, in a South Sea whaler, for their long and responsi- 
ble voyage round the world. Montgomery exj^resses his 
mingled emotions to his friend in verse, the key-note of 
which is ; 

" There is a feeling in the heart, 
That will not let thee go ; 
Yet go — thy spirit stays with me ; 
Yet go — my spirit goes with thee." 

Chronicling events from his own pen, he writes to a dear 
niece who visited him : 



LETTER TO BENNETT. 221 

" By the return of Miss Gales, our family is, as it must 
be a little while longer ; and unless you return, or Harriet 
conies, it is not likely to change till there be one less, and 
then another, and then another, and then there will be 
none! Long after that, may you and your sister be 
healthy, and happy, and on your Avay to heaven." 

Another letter to his friend Bennett : 

"Sheffield, Juno 10, 1821. 
"My Dear Feiend, 

" I do not know where this will meet you, or when ; 
but understanding that Mr. M'Coy will have an early ojd- 
portunity of forwarding letters to Port Jackson, I will 
embark on this sheet of j^aper in great haste I assure you, 
and make as good speed as I can, that while you are sail- 
ing half round the world to the west, I, by sailing half 
round it in the contrary direction, may meet you on 
the shores of Otaheite — if not face to face — hand to 
hand, and heart to heart. In a far country, the least thing 
that reminds us of our own, awakens in a moment a thou- 
sand endeared associations ; and if home-sickness comes 
over the spirit, too exquisitely touched, the anguish soon 
throbs itself into composure, or is exalted into ' the joy of 
grief' One of the last mcidents before we parted has 
often recurred to my mind. You committed to my care a 
letter which you had borrowed from a botanical friend, 
and which had been w^-itten to him by the Rev, Dr. Carey 
of Serampore. In that letter he mentions that a common 
field daisy had unexpectedly sprung up in his garden, out 
of a quantity of English earth in which the seeds of other 
plants had been transpoited to India. "With this playmate 
of his infoncy, and companion of his youth — for such the 

daisy is to all of us who have had the happiness to be born 
19* 



222 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

in the fields of our native land, instead of its cities — he 
had been so charmed, that from year to year he had 
trained a succession of seedlings to remind him of what 
he had loved and left at home. Now, though this letter 
of mine may be as insignificant in itself as a daisy appears 
among millions of its own and a thousand other species of 
flowers, to a suiDcrcilious eye in England, yet to you the 
handwriting on the direction I know will be as welcome 
as the phenomenon of the daisy in India to good Dr. 
Carey. I have little to say, and am so i:)ressed with trou- 
bles and duties (the former grievously aggravated by the 
perpetual neglect of the latter), that I am fairly Avriting 
by stealth, from a crowd of more importunate obligations, 
which are dunning and mobbing me on every side. Alas ! 
the prodigal of time — and the procrastinator is the great- 
est spendthrift of that most invaluable treasure — must 
always live in this kind of tribulation. I am too old to 
mend, I fear — nay, I despair of doing so — and yet I must, 
or I may fail at last in what is of more importance than all 
the world to me, as one whose day is far spent, with whom 
the evening of life is closing in deeper shadows every hour, 
and whom the unbroken night or the unsetting glory of 
eternity will soon surround forever and forever. Nothing 
of particular interest has occurred among your connections 
here, except what we all expected, but the inconvenience 
of which we could not otherwise than by experience know. 
"We are continually reminded of our bereavement by your 
departure : in the social circle your chair is empty ; your 
face is not seen in the sanctuary, and at our public meet- 
ings, the place which you occupied is filled by others, but 
not as you filled it. Repeatedly, on anniversary occasions, 
you have been remembered, not only in our hearts, but 
with our tongues we have testified how sincerely we loved 



ANNIVERSARY MEETINGS. 223 

you, and liow deeply, for your own sake, wc dej^lorc your 
removal. I may name especially — because you will be 
pleased to be thereby transported in spirit to the scenes in 
which you have often been engaged with your friends 
here, in holy and delightful, as well as benevolent and dis- 
interested service — the Missionary Union in Queen street 
Chapel, on Easter Monday — the Old Women's anniversary 
in the Cutler's Hall, about the middle of May — the Sun- 
day-school Union Committees, and especially the chiklren's 
nuister on the new burial-ground (for the last time proba- 
bly, as the foundations of a church arc soon to be laid 
there ; and the dead, for ages to come, are to be assembled 
round its future walls) — the sermons at Carver street, 
Queen street. Baptist, and Independent Methodist Chai)el, 
in the forenoon ; — but, above all, in the teachers' meeting 
in the afternoon, on "Whit-Monday. On the latter occa- 
sion I was disabled. I meant to have laid out my whole 
strength, to supply, as far as lay in my power, the loss that 
would be felt by your absence ; but it pleased the Lord to 
lay his hand on me, and though I was enabled to be a par- 
taker, I could scarcely be called a helper, of the joy of our 
numerous array in that glorious field. 

"The wound that incapacitated me from taking a promi- 
nent part in the action had been received in the same 
service, however ; and I ' pursued the triumph, and jiar- 
took the gale,' as heartily as if I had been the hero of the 
day. On the Friday evening before the anniversary I had 
returned from Halifax (where the West Riding Missionary 
Association meeting was held this year, and where you 
were remembered in almost every speech), much exhausted 
in body, and laboring under indisposition beside ; however, 
being willing in spirit, I went down to the committee [of 
S. S. U,] and read — what indeed nobody else could have 



224 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

read — tlie report at length, compiled from matter trans- 
mitted by the town and comitry schools. This brought 
on a violent inflammation of the throat ; but I was again 
delivered from the miseries of a quinsy by the application 
of leeches to the part externally, as I had been saved in 
like manner a few months before. However, such were the 
zeal and love to the cause displayed by your old associates, 
that neither the lack of your service nor mine was felt, 
otherwise than by the kindness and pai'tiality of friendship, 
to be any drawback from the enjoyment of the day. I 
don't remember, since the first, a more animated meeting 
of the Union. A resolution shall be transmitted to you, 
in which, beside a vote of cordial thanks for your past 
services, jou. are requested to allow your name to be re- 
corded among us as patron for life of the S. S. Union. I 
ought not to forget that our friend, .Mr. li. Hodgson, at 
the Church Missionary meeting held in the chancel of 
Rotherham Church a few days ago, made mention of you 
and your mission in such terms as delighted and aifected 
many — or rather all — who were then present, and excited 
Christian sympathy in no ordinary degree in the bosoms 
of Churchmen, Methodists, and Dissenters, of whom the 
assembly w^as composed. At the Hathersage Bible Asso- 
ciation, on Wednesday, I had an opportunity of pronounc- 
ing your name in ears to which it was exceedingly agree- 
able, but which would have been much better j^leased to 
have heard your voice. But I must close this recapitula- 
tion. 

" I know of no mortal change among your friends here, 
though you must look henceforth for the record of one 
or another such in every future epistle from your cor- 
respondents on this side of the mighty Avaters. We shall 
never all meet again as we were wont m this world ; but 



ORIGIN OF "THE DAISY IN INDIA." 225 

there are seats prepared for us at that table to which the 
redeemed shall come from the east and the west, the north 
and the south, and sit do'^^Ti with Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob. Ah ! then, may none of us be thrust out ; nor need 
we, unless we exclude ourselves. I duly received your 
letter from the Isle of Wight ; and we heard of your set- 
ting sail. The Lord be with you." 

The letter of Dr. Carey, one of the first Baptist mission- 
aries to India, here referred to, contained an interesting 
paragraj^h which touched the poet's heart, and originated 
one of his most charming little poems. The Daisy in India. 

" That I might be sure," ran the paragraph, " not to 
lose any part of your valuable present, I shook the bag 
over a patch of earth in a shady place : on visiting which, 
a few days afterwards, I found springing up, to my in- 
expressible delight, a hellis perennis of our English past- 
ures, I know not that I ever enjoyed, since leaving 
Europe, a simple pleasure so exquisite as the sight of 
this English daisy afforded me ; not having seen one for 
upwards of thirty years, and never expecting to see one 
again." 

Tlie Daisy in India revives the memory of early days, 
when scrap-books and albums caught up the little voyager 
to our shores, and when, 

" Thrice welcome, little English flower," 

had an unspeakable charm, even to the ear and heart of 
childhood. 

Following along in his path, we find him among the 
group at the laying of the corner-stone of a new church at 
Attercliffe, with the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Fitzwilliam, 



226 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

and Earl of Surrey, the strains of his hymn expressing 
the devout ittterances of tlic occasion. 

Again, we hear him in Cutler's Hall advocating a liter- 
ary association in his adopted town. 

And now he is at a meeting of the Wesleyan Tract 
Society, paying affectionate tribute to the memory of a 
humble brother : 

" The monthly meetings of the committee of this Tract 
Society, which were originally held at six o'clock in the 
morning, were the first prwate religious parties I ever ven- 
tured to unite with in Shefiield : but in them, I declare, in 
the presence of this assembly, I enjoyed the purest and 
most spiritual intercourse which I ever experienced among 
my feUow-men. For the sake of being present, I — who 
am so infirm, and constitutionally indolent — have many a 
time left my warm bed on a cold winter's morning : but 
let the weather be as cold as it would, our hearts were 
sure to be warmed in the meeting. It was there, in that 
corner [pointing to a particular part of the chapel, then 
boarded off as a vestry] I first saw Samuel Hill. He was 
at that time a very poor man — so poor, indeed, that I 
recollect he could not always afford to pay his subscrip- 
tion of six shillings a year ; but he was rich in faith, ripe 
in religious experience, and mighty in prayer: I declare 
before you all, that I never stood in the presence of cmy 
man with such trembling as I used to feel beside that 
humble individual. Good God, I thought. Thou hast 
given to that man, perhaps, only one talent; but how 
does he use it ! Surely, the responsibility of some of us, 
who believe ourselves more largely endowed, but are not 
bringing forth even similar fruits, will be awful indeed." 

" I have too much upon my mind to do anything well," 
he writes to Aston, " or, indeed, anything in the right 



FIRST MEETING WITH SOUTHEY. 227 

time, wliicli is half of well-doing at least. You may tliink 
that I forget you, because I so seldom tell you on paper 
that I remember you both with gratitude and esteem for 
many kindnesses shown to me, especially in former days : 
but the truth is, that my letter-writing age is gone by — 
never to return, vmless youth, the season for correspondence, 
comes back again. That^ however, cannot be ; chUdhood, 
I believe, does sometimes pay a second visit to man — 
youth never. The heart, however, when it is right, is al- 
ways yoiing, and knows neither decay nor coolness ; I can- 
not boast of mine in other respects ; but assuredly, in the 
integrity of its affections it has not grown a moment older 
these five-and-twenty years. 

In November, 1822, Southey, on a visit to Doncaster 
with his daughter, made a flying call at Sheffield, and sent 
for Montgomery to meet him at the Tontine. It was their 
first meeting, and cordial and heart-warming we believe it 
was, as became two frank and generous natures. Ebenezer 
Elhot was also there, and Mr. Everett, Southey's old an- 
tagonist in his Methodist controversy. "We cannot help 
wishing something more was left of the interview than 
its simple record. 

He again writes Mr. Bennett : 

"Sheffield, February 6, 1823. 
"My Dear Friend, 

" I have only as much time as I can hold in my hand, 
while it evaporates like ether, to say to you, as I do with 
my whole heart, ' The Lord bless, and preserve, and bring 
you home again !' Mr. RoAvland Hodgson, I understand, 
has written to you from Devonshire ; I have nothing to 
enclose from any of your friends here, but what I may 
send, even without asking their leave to do so, — their best 



228 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

■wishes and prayers for you, all in consonance with Avhat I 
have already expressed on my own part. I seem to follow 
you. time after time, and letter by lettei', as if you were 
going further and further from me, and rather advancing 
on a mission through the solar system, than located for 
awhile at the antipodes. I am always glad to hear of 
you, from whatever quarter the intelligence may come ; 
but I cannot help also desiring to hear from you once, at 
least, while you sojourn at the 'green earth's remotest 
verge.' Can you believe it yourself, that I have never 
received a line nor a word from you since you passed 
the equator ? You did not plunge my memory into the 
fathomless abyss there, nor leave it on this side, because 
you have mentioned ray name with all your wonted kind- 
ness to some of our mutual friends. Of this I will not 
complain ; — it has so happened ; but I cannot helj) some- 
times repining a little that it has not happened otherwise. 
I am sure I have not been neglectful of you ; this must 
be the fifth packet, as well as I can recollect, which I have 
despatched to you by one conveyance or another, with 
about as much hope of some of them reaching you, as if I 
had thrown so many bottles into the sea, and left them 
there to find their way by the drifting of currents to your 
Pacific islands. You will see by one of the pamphlets 
which I enclose, that we have just established a Literary 
and Philosophical Society in Sheffield. Pray remember 
this; and when you pick up a pebble or a weed worth 
presenting, do send it. We have just heard that you are 
recovered from the illness that afflicted you this time last 
year. Again, I say — God bless and keep you !" 



BIORE ANTIPODAL CORRESPONDENCE. 229 

Again : 

"Sheffield, March 26, 1823. 
"My Dear Feiexd, 

" I once more send a line of remembrance and affec- 
tion to you, and I can do no more at present. Five times, 
at least, have I forwarded parcels by various opportunities ; 
and such is the uncertainty or the delay of communications 
to the South Seas, that it seems, by your last letter to Mr. 
Hodgson from the Sandwich Islands, that you had not 
received one of these in August last. Long before now, 
I hope that on your return to Tahiti you would meet 
with a month's reading almost from Sheffield alone, which 
must have accumulated there during your absence, if no 
miscarriage has taken place in our addresses to you. I 
fear that yours to us have not been so fortunate. Neither 
Mr. Boden, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Read, nor myself, have heard 
from you since June, 1821. Miss Ball did receive a letter 
from you some time ago ; but no member of the three 
families above named have been so favored yet. Your 
letters, however, become common property in your long 
absence, and they travel about from eye to eye, and heart 
to heart, making all glad on account of your zeal, and love, 
and faith, and labor in the Lord's cause, and the kind re- 
membrances which each of us in our turn see in your own 
handwriting to those who are happy enough to receive 
letters addressed to themselves. We begin to think that 
your heart and eye must be often turned homeward ; and 
though we would not welcome you hither, even if it de- 
pended on our decision, one moment before you have 
finished the work which, treading in the steps of your Re- 
deemer, your heavenly Father has given you to do, yet we 
would not have you detained one moment longer than that 

consummation. Farewell ! probably the last time before 
20 



230 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

your return, for how are we to follow your wanderings by 
sea and land, when you leave the South Seas, if you re- 
turn by the East Indies, making missionary visits there ? 
Misses Gales send kind regards." 

Again he writes in a letter a few months later : 

" Our inestimable friend, Mr. Rowland Hodgson, has 
had another sharj^ visitation of his inveterate complaint, 
which has obliged him to retire to the south of England 
for the winter. He has, indeed, been rendered back to us 
from the gate of death so frequently, that we may yet 
pray with confident expectation, that goodness and mercy 
may yet follow him through many years of a life so pre- 
cious to his friends, to the Chui'ch, and to the world in our 
quarter, as his has hitherto been. Mr. Roberts holds on 
pretty stoutly, and in his peculiar Avay continues to do 
good — and a great deal, too, in one respect ; for, princi- 
pally by his exei'tions, we have raised about £320 in a few 
weeks for the Moravian missions." 

The poor chimney-sweeps still maintain their hold on 
Mr. Roberts, who, fertile in resources, now projDoses the 
publication of a little volume, a sort of" Chimney-sweepers' 
Album," the first part to embody all the information which 
had been gained in reference to their labors, and the 
second, in prose and verse, to illustrate their unpitied and 
unalleviated sufferings. 

Montgomery undertook the editorship of it ; and to en- 
rich its literary department, he bespoke contributions from 
all the jDoetic celebrities of the day. 

" Oil for a muse of smol-e that would ascend 
The highest cliimncy of invention !" 

answers Moore from Sloperton Cottage, " but nothing 



THE POETS ON CHIMNEY-SWEEPS. 231 

came that I could venture to send you, and though I 
ought to have written to tell you so, I did not, and must 
only trust to your good nature for forgiveness. 

" It would give me great delight to meet you. There are 
passages of yours that I repeat to myself almost daily. If 
ever good luck should take me to Sheffield, I shall, on the 
strength of our chimney-sweep correspondence, knock at 
your door." 

" I am much inclined to doubt," writes George Croly, 
" whether poetry is the proper weapon, and whether a col- 
lection of strong cases, icell authenticated and well told, 
prefaced by a few images of the history and nature of this 
grievance and disgrace to humanity and England, would 
not be the true mode of influencing the nation, and through 
thom the legislature, I know that something of this kind 
has been done already, and that the House of Lords re- 
sisted the measure ; but it was on the alleged ground that 
chimneys were so built as to make the employment of 
machinery dangerous. The answer that we must give to 
this, is the production of machinery that will clean the 
angles of the chimneys. Until this be done, no j^rogress 
with the Lords can be expected. 

" If I should find it in my power to assist your design 
in any form of this nature, by urging your pamphlet into 
notice, I shall be extremely gratified. But I confess I am 
fully convinced that something appealing more directly to 
the general understanding than poetry must be employed," 

Sir Walter Scott, on being written to, says : 

" Abbotsford, near Melrose, January 4, 1S24. 
"I am favored with your letter, and should be most 
happy to do what would be agreeable to Mr. Montgomery; 
but a veteran in literature, like a veteran in arms, loses the 



232 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

alacrity with which young men start to the task ; and I 
have been so long out of the habit of writing poetry, 
that my Pegasus has become very restive. Besides, at 
my best, I was never good at writing occasional verses." 

Sir "Walter, however, was not the man to content him- 
self with a mere apology for doing nothing ; and accord- 
ingly the editor says in his preface, that " he has con- 
tributed something towards this work, which will tell 
better in the end than even a poem from his own inimita- 
ble pen might have done." This was a description of the 
plan adopted in the construction of the vents of his then 
newly-erected residence at Abbotsford, and by which he 
had " taken care that no such cruelty (as that exercised in 
the employment of boys) shall be practised within its 
precincts." 

Allan Cunningham accompanied a song characteristic 
alike of his genius and good nature, with a letter, in which 
he says : 

" Eccleton Street, Pimlico, February, 1824. 

" That I wish a full and triumphant success to your 
benevolent undertaking you will readily imagine ; and 
poetry will do more for human nature in one hour than it 
has done for a century, if it redeems the image of God 
from this profanation. I am glad of this opportunity to 
tell you how long and how much you have gratified me 
with your poetry ; and to assure you that you have many, 
many warm admirers among men Avho open books, not for 
the sake of telling others what they think of them, but for 
the deUght they give — the surest proof of excellence." 

Bernard Barton, Barry Cornwall, Bowring, and three or 
four others, contributed to the projiosed volume, which 



VARIOUS OPINIONS. 233 

appeared in the spring of 1824, under the title of Cliimney- 
Suoeepers'' Friend and Climhing Hoys' Albimi, and was 
dedicated to the Father of all his People, King George 
IV., to whom a copy was transmitted. 

" After talking with many literary people, when in 
town," says Professor Smyth, of Cambridge, " I am but con- 
firmed in my original notion, that no good can be done in 
the way in which it is proposed to attempt it. Ludicrous 
associations have unfortunately got connected with these 
poor boys ; and I conceive, with others, that the Muse and 
the Fine Arts are more likely to suffer from this sort of 
connection with them, than to do them service." 

Mr. Proctor, however (Barry Cornwall), whose poetical 
contribution is one of the best in the volume, remarks, 
" I have dealt jo^w/w^y with the subject, although I don't 
know why soot should not produce poetical as well as 
natural flowers." Lamb, who deemed "the subject so 
unmanageable in poetry," communicated, nevertheless, a 
very characteristic little poem from Blake's " Songs of 
Lmocence." 

The editor, also, did his share. How much actual good 
the little book effected, of course cannot be calculated, but 
the corresiDondence growing out of it, afforded Mont- 
gomery a cheering interlude amid graver labors. 

After repeated attempts to get Pai'liamentary action on 
the subject, an act for the total discontinuance of the evil 
unanimously passed both Houses, we believe in 1839. 

Southey writes at this time : 

"Keswick, July 24, 1824. 
" My Dear Montgomery, 

" You wrote me a very kind and gratifying letter in 

November last, which I received at a time when it was not 

possible to answer it ; for, from the time you saw me till 
20* 



234 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY, 

tlie middle of February, I was 2:>er2)etually engaged in trav- 
elling or in society. During that course of locomotion, 
your circular reached me, and if I could have written any- 
thing for your well-intended volume, iu any way tolerable, 
you should have had it. But the truth is, that, from long 
disuse, I have lost all facility of writing upon occasional 
subjects. These matters premised, now for the reason 
why I have neglected to write ever since : it is not a very 
good one, I confess, and yet, such as it is, it must be 
told. Before I dej^arted from London, Longmans sent 
me Prose hy a Poet from an old Friend. I meant to read 
it in the country, but when I packed iip my boxes for 
exportation thither, by some accident these volumes were 
left behind. Meanwhile, in daily expectation of their arri- 
val, I have waited week after week, not liking to thank 
you for them till I could say I had perused them with 
pleasure. 

" My heart goes with yoii in your moral speculations. 
Such papers as those upon Old Women and Juvenile De- 
linquency cannot be sent into the world without jJi'oducing 
some good. I too have been j^robing the wounds of so- 
ciety. I hope, in the course of the next season, to send 
you my speculations upon its progress and prospects, in 
a series of Colloquies, to which I have jDrefixed as a motto 
three pregnant Avoi'ds from St. Bernard, — respice, aspice^ 
prospice. You may differ — yet not I think materially — 
from some of the opinions advanced there ; but the general 
tendency and fundamental principles will have your full 
concurrence. I want more order, more discipline, less lib- 
erty to do ill, more encouragement, more help to do well. 
I want to impress both upon the rulers and the people a 
sense of their respective duties ; for in truth we have at 
this time reached a more critical period in the progress 



VISIT TO BRIDLINGTON. 235 

of society than history has ever before unfolded. The full 
effects of the discovery of printing have never been appre- 
hended till now ; the pressure of population has never till 
now been felt in a Christian country (I hope you know that 
I abhor Malthus's abominable views) — the consequences of 
an unlimited and illimitable creation of wealth have never 
before been dreamt of; and, to crown all, there is even a 
probability that the art of war may be made so excellently 
destructive as to put an end to it. How I should like to 
talk with you upon some of these wide-branching subjects 
among the mountains !" 

In the month of October be went to Bridlington. Of 
this visit, we have a poetical memento in the Three Sonnets 
descriptive of scenes witnessed from the quay, and which 
appear in his collected works under the title of A Sea 
Piece. They were considered by the author as the best 
original poems in this form which he ever wrote. It may 
be interesting to mention, as illustrative of Montgomery's 
habit of composing Avhile travelling, that the whole of these 
sonnets, with the exception of about six lines of the first, 
were written on the road between Bridlington and York. 
December 16, 1824, he writes to Mr. Bennett: 
"This packet will be tenfold welcome, because it con- 
tains remembrances from many quarters. Your letters, 
dated from on board the vessel which I hope has long ere 
now landed you in New South Wales, were lately received, 
and, brief as they were, none that ever reached us from 
the other side of the world, even under your hand and 
seal, were more gratefully welcomed, because the ' hope 
deferred,' till 'the heart' Avas almost 'sick' of hearing that 
you were actually turnmg your face towards the setting 
sun tiU he should become the rising sun, had made us 



236 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

anxiously expect the arrival of your next communica- 
tions ; these, when they came, were indeed ' a tree of life,' 
and we have now begun to think that probable, which 
heretofore we looked upon as merely possible; namely, 
that we may yet see your face again in the flesh, and 
hear from your lips, what we always read with delight 
from your pen, the great things which the Lord hath 
done for you, and in you, and by you, smce we parted. 
Your letters and packages, by the returned vessel from 
the South Seas in October last, came to hand, and were 
exceedingly acceptable. The share of shells and other 
curiosities, which were forwarded to me from London, 
have been distributed according to the best of my judg- 
ment among your friends here, with the consent and ad- 
vice of Mr. Rowland Hodgson, Mr. Samuel Roberts, and 
Mr. Read, whom I consulted in everything. The artificial 
articles, arms, ornaments, cases, &c., &c., we deemed it 
best to present to The Literary and Philoso'phical iSo- 
ciett/s Musemn here^ where they will be preserved entire, 
and always oi^en to the public inspection. Had we divided 
them, they would have been of [comj)ai'atively] little value 
to anybody ; whereas, being thus preserved and dedicated, 
they will be a treasure, even to posterity, with your towns- 
people. Mr. Rowland Hodgson is still very feeble, and 
leads a suffering life : he and I were together for a few 
weeks at Bridlington Quay, whence he wrote to you. Mr. 
Roberts and his family are pretty well ; he writes to you 
by this conveyance. ; . . An old and most amia- 
ble acquaintance of yours lately died at Chesterfield, full 
of faith, and patience, and hope that shall not be ashamed, 
I verily believe, — Joseph Storrs. Mr. Hodgson and I 
were at his house a few weeks before his end, and he 
seemed then calmly and delightfully undressing for the 



ESSAY ON COWPER'S POEMS. 237 

grave, and clothing for immortality. Plis end was peace. 
Your name, I may say, is never forgotten at our anniver- 
saries of Christian Institutions, and if not absolutely men- 
tioned, is remembered with feelings of affection, and regret, 
and desire, by those who have been wont to see you lead- 
ing the van in eveiy engagement against the powers of 
darkness, shining in the whole armor of light. O, how 
glad shall we be to hail you back again, should the merci- 
ful providence of God agam unite us personally in works 
of faith and love ! " 

" AYhen you return," he again writes to Mr. Bennett, 
" you will with sorrow discover how much we have apos- 
tatized in many things from what you taught us, and from 
what we followed diUgently and successfully, Avhile you, 
as our master, — the greatest of all, because the servant 
of all, like your Redeemer, — were present with us. Oh ! 
how welcome again will be your vigilant eye, your active 
mind, your generous hand, your fervent spirit ! Forgive 
me for what seems to be praise, but is only the language 
of gratitude and affection from my heart. I speak thus, 
because you will give God the glory. I cannot recollect 
any particular local intelligence to send you at this time. 
My friends here, the Misses Gales, are pretty well ; we 
often talk of you at our fireside, always with affectionate 
hearts, and sometunes with tearful eyes. They send their 
kindest regards, and benedictions, and prayers for your 
health, and happiness, and return. I have scarcely any- 
thing new to send you in print, except a copy of ' Cowper's 
Poems,' to which the prefatory essay is my composition. 
Of this I beg your acceptance, as another small token of 
my gratitude and esteem for many invaluable acts of kind- 
ness shown to me while you lived here, and for every one 
of which I am happy to remain your debtor till death." 



238 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

In July, 1825, Mr. Carter, of New York, travelling in 
England, paid the poet a visit, and on his return, gratified 
the American public with a description of the bard and his 
surroundings. 

The neat sitting-room, and the affable sisterhood ; the 
expressive countenance, gentle manners, and delightful con- 
versation of the host, all conspired to make an evening 
at Hartshead one of the pleasantest in the traveller's wan- 
derings. Nor should pussy be left out of this family scene, 
fondly purring at her master's feet, or coyly leaj^ing on his 
knee to receive her share of tea and toast. Nor should it 
be concealed that the grave poet in lighter moods indited 
an epistle for his feline pet to a little girl, its sometime 
playmate. Whether this deserves a place in these sober 
annals, nobody but Grimalkin's friends would be generous 
judges of. 

"Hartshead, near the Ilolc-iu-thc-Wall, July 23, 1825. 
" Hakrererr, 

" 3feio^ xoew^ auxL\ mauu\ hee^ icee, mime, waw, iciirr, 
iohiri\ ghurr^ wew, whew, issssss, tz, tz, tz, pihrrurrurrurr^'' 
dec. 

done into english : 
" Harriet, 

" This comes to tell you that I am very Avell, and I 
hope you are so too. I am growing a great cat ; pray 
how do you come on ? I wish you were here to carry me 
about as you used to do, and I would scratch you to some 
purpose, for I can do this much better than I could while 
you were here. I have not run away yet, but I believe I 
shall soon, for I find my feet are too many for my head, and 
often carry me into mischief. Love to Sheffelina, though 



FELINE CORRESPONDENCE. 239 

I was always fit to pull her cap when I saw you petting 

her. My cross old mother sends her love to you — she 

shows me very little now-a-days, I assure you, so I do not 

care Avhat she does with the rest. She has brought me a 

mouse or two, and I caught one myself last night, but it 

was in my dream, and I awoke as hungry as a hunter, and 

fell to biting at my tail, which I believe I should have 

eaten up, but it would not let me catch it. So no more at 

present from 

"Tint. 

" P. S. — I forgot to tell you that I can beg, but I like 
better to steal — it's more natural, you know. 
"Harriet at Ockbrook." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

■WITHDRAWAL FROM THE " IRIS" — REMINISCENCES — PUBLIC DINNER — 
TOKENS OF RESPECT — CHRISTIAN PSALMIST — SENTIMENTS ON IIYM- 
NOLOGY — LETTER TO MR. BENNETT — "THE STRANGER AND HIS 
friend" — TOUR — " PELICAN ISLAND" — ANTI-SLAVERY MEETINGS — 
MRS. IIEMANS — ROBERT MONTGOMERY — LETTERS FROM SOUTIIEY — 
VISIT TO KESWICK, 

The duties of editorship grew more and more dis- 
tasteful to Montgomery. Personal politics he hated ; the 
political principles of the parties with which he most 
naturally sympathised were often allied to measures which 
he could not approve ; and, as for going with a party 
"right or wrong," a popular political maxim which has 
throttled many a conscientious scruple, and runs up heavy 
liabilities on the great day of reckoning, Montgomery 
never did. He loved the aj^probation of his fellows, as 
what man does not ? collisions of all sorts rasped ujion his 
sensitive nature ; but he was an independent and fearless 
thinker, and never truclded to party measures, great names, 
or his own pockets. 

But now that his purse had reinforcements from other 
sources, for something had accumulated from the sale of 
his books, and a yearly income was accruing from them, 
he more than ever wished to dispose of his newspaper, 
and give himself altogether to pursuits more congenial to 
his taste and tempei*. 



RETIREMENT FROM THE "IRIS." 241 

An opportunity offered at tliis time, which his judgment 
determined him to accept, and in Sejrtember, 1825, the 
Iris passed into the hands of its new proprietor, Mr. Black- 
Avell, a Methodist preacher, ^^•hose failing health compelled 
him to quit the pulpit for the printing-office. 

His farewell address commended itself to his townsfolks, 
and fewer slurs were probably cast upon its truthfulness 
than often happens to the last testaments of retiring 
editors. 

Referring to his principles of action he says: 

" From the first moment that I became the director of 
a public journal, I took my own ground. I have stood 
upon it through many years of changes, and I rest by it 
this day, as having aftbrded me a shelter through the far 
greater portion of my life, and yet offering me a grave, 
when I shall no longer have a part in anything done under 
the sun. And this was my ground — a plain determination, 
come Avind or sun, come fire or flood, to do what was 
right. I lay stress on the jiurposc, not the performance, 
for this was the polar star to which my compass pointed, 
though with considerable ' variation of the needle.' "... 

He thus winds up his retrospect : 

"At the close of 1805 ended the romance of my public 

life. The last twenty years have brouglit their cares and 

their trials, but these have been of the ordinary kind — not 

always the better to bear on that account. On a review 

of them, I can affirm that I have endeavored, according to 

my knowledge and al)ility, to serve my townspeople and 

my country, with ns little regard to the fear or favor of 

party men as personal infirmity would admit. From the 

beginning I have been no favorite with such characters. 

By the 'Aristocrats' I was persecuted, and abandoned by 

the ' Jacobins.' I have found nearly as little grace in the 
21 



242 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

sight of the milder representatives of these two defunct 
classes in later times ; yet, if either has cause to complain, 
it is that I have occasionally taken part with the other — 
a presumptive proof of my impartiality. Whatever charge 
of indecision may be brought against me by those who will 
only see one .side of everything, while I am often puzzled 
by seeing so many as hardly to be able to make out the 
shape of the object — it cannot be denied, that on the most 
important questions which have exercised the understand- 
ings or the sympathies of the people of England, I have 
never flinched from declaring my own sentiments, at the 
sacrifice both of popularity and interest. If I have not 
done all the good which I might, and which I ought, I 
have rejected many opportunities of doing mischief — a 
negative merit, which sometimes costs no small self-denial 
to the editor of a public journal. While I quit a painful 
resjjonsibility in laying down my office, I am sensible that 
I resign the possession of great power and influence in the 
neighborhood. These I cannot have exercised through so 
many years, without having made the character of my 
townspeople something diflerent from Avhat it would have 
been at this day had I never come among them. Whether 
they are better or worse for my existence here, they them- 
selves are the right judges. This I can affirm, that I have 
perseveringly sought the peace of the city wherein I was 
led as an exile to dwell ; and never neglected an occasion 
to promote the social, moral, and intellectual improvement 
of its inhabitants. Nor in retirement can I forget, that the 
same duty I still owe them." 

Though to a friend he playfully tells how miserable both 
he and the cat were with the noise, dust and confusion of 
breaking Tip the printing-office, the relinquishment of his 
editoj'ial duties seems to have sfiven him unfeigned gratifi- 



A PUBLIC DINNER. 243 

cation. Never were old habits and haunts abandoned Avith 
less real or sentimental regret. 

" I have never repented of it for one moment," he says. 
"• I am thankful, inexj^ressibly thankful, to that gracious 
Providence, which thus released me from a burthen which 
I could scarcely bear any longer. Of course, I am not 
rich — I never took the means of being so. I have often 
said I could not aflbrd to pay the price of wealth, and as 
there is neither a Law of Nations or an Act of ParUament 
to compel me to become rich, I would not sell my peace of 
mind, nor consume my time in getting what I might never 
enjoy. I do not despise money ; I love it as much as any 
man ought to do, and perhaps something more at particular 
times ; but a small provision is enough for my few wants, 
and the Lord has made that provision for me, I owe it all 
to Ilim ; I cannot say that my skill, or industry, or merit 
of any kind has acquired it ; I have received it as a free 
gift at his hands, and to Him I would consecrate it, and 
every other talent." 

Montgomery's retirement from the editorial chair was 
celebrated by a public dinner, an occasion for his friends 
and fellow-townsmen to express their high regard for his 
worth and talents. 

On the 4th of November, the poet's fifty-fourth birth- 
day, a hundred and sixteen gentlemen sat down at the 
Tontine Inn, to do him honor over roast beef, and to pay a 
deserving tribute to manly and high-toned Christian citizen- 
ship. 

" I looked forward to this day," he said to his friends, 
"with mingled terror and delight. The terror has de- 
j)arted, but the delight will long remain." 

Other congratulations of a more serious tone were borne 
to him. 



244 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" In former times," writes a faithful preacher, " you were 
made to feel the bitterness of affliction, and you have fre- 
quently had to drink, in secret, from the cup of sorrow ; 
but this is a chord I have no right to touch; it is the sanc- 
tuary into which I must not enter. And I shall only re- 
mind you, that while you were thus tried, your heavenly 
Father has been employed in j^olishing one of his precious 
jewels against that day when He will make it up, with 
millions more, and give it a place in the mediatorial crown 
of the Redeemer. I know, my dear friend, that to your 
heart this is the noblest and most desirable consummation 
that eternity itself can reveal. All the afflictive circum- 
stances of your life have been brought about by infinite 
wisdom, and Avith the most benign intentions. But why 
should I write in this strain, when your cup of felicity 
is running over ? I ha^e contemplated the honors Avith 
which you have been arrayed as the fruits of a victory, 
a glorious victory, in which the whole Christian world 
should participate. It is the triumph of truth, and virtue, 
and piety, over error, and vice, and impiety. Your muse 
has been persecuted for righteousness' sake ; and after hav- 
ing passed through much tribulation, she now aj^pears, like 
the saints before the throne, clothed in white raiment, and 
holding in her hand the emblematic palm. ... A voice 
from the throne of the Eternal is heard, saying, ' Be thou 
faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life,' 
This is in reserve for you, and will infinitely surpass all 
the honor that comes from man. My feeble but sincere 
prayers are daily offered up on your behalf, that you may 
possess aU siDiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus." 

Released from the urgent and ever recurring duties of a 
journalist, Montgomery had more time for those " minis- 



TESTIMONIALS OF RESPECT. 245 

tries of mercy " Avhicli marked his later life, and which 
gave him so strong a hold upon the symjjathies and affec- 
tions of the Christian public. 

While gentlemen ate to the poet's honor, woman em- 
bodied her respect in a more permanent and significant 
memorial. A beautiful inkstand, of Sheffield workman- 
ship, was presented to him, and a thousand dollars were 
raised to found and support a Moravian mission, to be 
called by Ms name, and located in Tobago, where his 
parents labored forty years before. 

" Montgomery " is a station blessed by the God of grace. 
Its congregations this day number 1,400 adults, and, in- 
cluding the schools, as many children. 

A letter to an old friend discloses an abatement of the 
fervors of youth, with little relaxation from its pressing en- 
gagements : 

" I have as little deserved that you should suppose I was 
offended at you, as you have deserved that I should take 
offence. My only fault, it seems, is my silence ; that can 
soon be explained — whether it can be justified, is another 
question. Well, then, you have only just the same com- 
plaint to make against me, that every other friend I have 
in the world may make. When I am absent, I never write 
a letter that I can fairly avoid now-a-days; because, in 
truth, I am oppressed and harassed with miscellaneous 
correspondence which I cannot escape, and which is often 
accompanied by such tasks for my mind, that my eye 
recoils and my hand shrinks instinctively from a blank 
sheet of letter paper; and nothing can exceed the re- 
pugnance with which I launch my pen upon such an 
unknown sea, except the pleasure with which I drop 
anchor with it at the bottom of the third page, — for I 

seldom put into port sooner, — and jump on shore while 

21* 



246 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

I fold it up in all the joy of freedom. It was quite 
otherwise Avhen you and I were correspondents thirty 
years ago. I was then young, and ardent, and devoted 
rather to suffer than to lie still; I had abundance of 
surplus feelings, and thoughts, and imaginations, which 
I Avas delighted to disburthen to a faithful friend, who 
I Avas sure would read them with as much enthusiasm 
as I Avrote. I have gone through many labors, and 
trials, and afflictions in the plain prose of human Ufe 
since that time ; and the poetry of my heart has been 
blighted and Avithered in the cold mildcAVS and dry blasts 
AA^hich have gone over me since I was an inhabitant of 
the Avorld of romance. This is very much like frenzy, 
you AA-ill say; there is, hoAvever, truth, imiDlied if not 
expressed, in it, and truth which I have no power to 
communicate in ordinary words, and which I Avould not 
communicate if I could ; for it is connected in me Avith 
that bitterness which the heart keeps to itself, and Avith 
which even a friend cannot altogether sympathize. In 
a word, I ha\'e lived so long, and have been carried by 
the flood of events to a situation which exjDoses me to 
the honor and misery of being deemed by many people 
a much greater, better, Aviser man than I am ; and con- 
sequently I must pay the price in the sacrifice of time, 
talents (such as they are), feeling, and peace of mind, for 
such distinction. The effect is, that I can do very little 
for myself; my spirits are exhausted Avith business to 
which I am compelled either by a sense of duty, or im- 
perious necessity, — not having learnt to say wo, — so that 
when I have an hour of leisure, I am out of tune, and 
sit down in sadness and despondency, thinking that I live 
almost in vain, if not Avorse than in vain, and that the 
little strength I have I spend for naught. During the last 



"CHRISTIAN PSALMIST" AND "POET." 247 

four months I have been attempting, in kicid intervals, 
to compose a leading poem for a volume of fugitive pieces, 
which I have, flying about the kingdom in all directions ; 
yet, hitherto, I have found it the hardest task of the kind 
I ever undertook, and of the success I cannot form an 
idea, indeed hardly a hojie. 

" But I must be brief I have not written to you be- 
cause I had no occasion, that is, no compulsion : I write 
now, because I have both." 

This letter closed Montgomery's correspondence with 
Joseph Aston, of Manchester, who died a few years after, 
at the ripe age of 82. 

Of his more direct labors in the vocation by which he 
is now best known to the world, we learn froto himself 
in a letter to Mr. Bennett : 

" Since I last wrote to you, if I recollect rightly, I have 
twice appeared before the world — as a Christian Psalm- 
ist^ and as a Christian Poet. I allude to two volumes of 
compilations of psalms and hymns, in the first instance, in. 
which I deemed poetry and piety to be united, with a 
hundred original pieces of my own, which has been a 
very successful publication, something of the kind having 
long been wanted. The sequel, the Christian Poet^ had 
the same object in view, but comprehended pieces of a 
higher order, and laying claim to the genuine honors of 
verse, as the noblest vehicle of the noblest thoughts. 
This also promises to reward the spirited publisher, and, 
I may add, the laborious editor. Last week I assumed a 
new poetical shape, and came out as the author of the 
Pelican Island., of which I can say no more than that 
it is in blank verse, and that, if I find opportunity, I shall 
be exceedingly happy to enclose a copy of each of these 



248 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

works, to ' kiss your hands ' (as the Italians say) among 
the Hottentots." 

" The Christian Psalmist ; or Hymns selected and orig- 
inal," appeared at the close of the year 1825. These, 
562 in number, are from several authors, including one- 
fifth from his own pen. The work went through several 
editions, and Avas very acceptable to the religious public. 

Some remarks on Hymnology, from his introductory 
essay, will be interesting in these days of Christian 
psalmody : 

" A hymn ought to be as regular in its structure as any 
other poem ; it should have a distinct subject, and that 
subject should be simple, not comphcated, so that whatever 
skill or labor might be required in the author to develop 
his plan, there should be little or none required on the 
part of the reader to understand it. Consequently, a hymn 
must have a beginning, middle, and end. There should 
be a manifest gradation in the thoughts ; and their mutual 
dependence should be so perceptible that they could not 
be transposed without injuring the unity of the piece ; 
every line carrying forward the connection, and every 
verse adding a well-pi"oportioned limb to a symmetrical 
body. The reader should know when the strain is com- 
plete, and be satisfied, as at the close of an air in music ; 
while defects and superfluities should be felt by him as 
annoyances, in whatever part they might occur. The 
practice of many good men, in framing hymns, has been 
quite the contrary. They have begun apparently with the 
only idea in their mind at the time ; another, with little 
relationship to tlie former, has been forced upon them by 
a refractory rhyme ; a third became necessary to eke out 
a verse ; a fourth, to begin one ; and so on, till, having 
compiled a sufficient number of stanzas of so many fines, 



SENTIMENTS ON HYMNOLOGY. 249 

and lines of so many syllables, tlie operation Las been sus- 
pended ; whereas it might with equal consistency, have 
been continued to any imaginable length, and the tenth 
or ten thousandth link might have been struck out or 
changed places with any other, without the slightest in- 
fraction of the chain ; the whole being a series of inde- 
pendent verses, collocated as they came, and the burden 
a canto of phrases, figures, and ideas, the common projDcrty 
of every \vriter who has none of his own, and therefore 
found in the works of each, miimproved, if not imimjjaired, 
from generation to generation. Such rha^jsodies may be 
sung from time to time, and keep alive devotion already 
kindled ; but they leave no trace in the memory, make no 
impression on the heart, and fall through the mind as 
sounds glide through the ear — pleasant, it may be, in 
their passage, but never returning to haunt the imagina- 
tion in retirement, or, in the multitude of the thoughts, 
to refresh the soul. Of how contrary a character, how 
transccndently superior in value as well as influence, are 
those hymns which, once heard, are remembered Avithout 
efibrt — remembered involuntarily, yet remembered with 
renewed and increasing delight at every revival ! It may 
be safely affirmed that the permanent favorites in every 
collection are those which, in the requisites before men- 
tioned, or for some other peculiar excellence, are dis- 
tinguished above the rest." 

Tried by this test, are his own hymns found wanting ? 
August 16, 1826, he Avrites to Mr. Bennett: 
" From the hurry and anxiety of preparation for a jour- 
ney to Plarrogate, I snatch a few moments to flee over 
land and ocean — as I may do without the slightest inter- 
ruption, though I cannot cross the room in which I am 
sitting without an effort of mind and limb — to meet you, 



250 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

wherever you are at this time, in sjoirit, and whenever you 
arrive at the place to which this is directed, to meet you 
again on paper. The latter occasion, I hope, will be when 
you arrive at your last stage before embarking, for good 
and cdl^ for Old England once more. At the Cape of 
Good Hope, then, and for the last time jirobably, siich an 
interview will occur ; I therefore gladly assure you, of 
Avhat you know by your own feelings, that absence cannot 
lessen the sincere affection of long-enjoyed and long-tried 
Christian friendship, and if absence in this world cannot do 
it, where we have but the possibility of meeting again — ab- 
sence from the body, when to be so absent is to be present 
with the Lord, cannot disunite those who love Him, for 
where He is, we shall be. Your last letter, from the 
Eastern Archipelago, showed me that, as you have turned 
the point from which the sun sets out to visit t;s, your 
heart feels the attraction of your native land stronger 
and stronger, and the sweetness of home-sickness grows 
more and more overpowering and bewildering. I can 
truly sympathise w^ith you in the desolation of heart which 
you experienced on the coast of China, in the river of 
Canton, Avhere the truth as it is in Jesus is i:)roscribed. 
And there to find no letter from England, no introduction 
from Dr. Morrison — this, after coming from the islands 
of the South Sea, where 'glory to God in the highest,' &c. 
is singing from shore to shore, as if Christ Avere ncAV-born 
among the people who sat in darkness there — this must 
have gone through your soul like a sword of ice, wound- 
ing, and chilling, and deadening, where it pierced Faith, 
Hope, and Charity themselves in your bosom. But it is 
discouracins: to us to send out our messengers from time 
to time, we know not whither, in the hope that one or 
two may not miscarry. This shuts our hearts and restrains 



"THE STKANGER AND IIIS FRIEND." 251 

our hands when we write, not knowing for whose eyes 
the Imes may be destined. All the public affairs of this 
neighborhood you wiU learn from the newsj)apers ; and 
from these you will find that the number of old famiUar 
foces is diminishing : many you Avill never see again ; and 
those you do, will not appear as they once did ; they grow 
old, and yet renew their youth, like the eagle, with every 
opportunity of writing to or hearing from the beloved and 
absent. 

" You are often inquired after by persons whose names 
I knoAV not. Once more, your faithful friend." 

An exquisite embodiment of the Christian element of 
good works belongs to this year : 

THE STKAIS^GEK AND IIIS EFaEND. 

" Ye have done it unto 7nc." — Matt., sxv. 40. 

" A poor way-faring Man of grief 
Hath often crossed me on my way, 

Who sued so humbly for relief, 
That I could never answer ' Nay :' 

I had not power to ask his name, 

Whither he went, or whence he came; . 

Yet there was something in his eye 

That won my love, I knew not why. 

" Once, when my scanty meal was spread, 
He entered — not a word he spake — 

Just famisliing, for want of bread : 
I gave him all — he blessed it, brake, 

And ate, but gave me part again. 

Mine was an angel's portion then; 

For while I fed with eager haste. 

That crust was manna to my taste. 



252 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" I spied him, where a fountain burst 

Clear from the rock : his strength was gone ; 
The heedless water mocked his thirst; 

He heard it, saw it liurrying on : 
I ran to raise the sufferer up ; 
Thrice from the stream he drained my cup, 
Dipt, and returned it, running o'er 
I drank, and never tliirsted more. 

" 'Twas night: the floods were out; it blew 

A winter hurricane aloof: 
I heard his voice abroad, and flew 

To bid him welcome to my roof. 
I warmed, I clothed, I cheered my guest, 
Laid him on my own couch to rest ; 
Tlicn made the hearth my bed, and seemed 
In Eden's garden while I dreamed. 

" Stript, wounded, beaten, nigh to death, 
I found him by the highway side : 
I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, 

Eevived his spirit, and supplied 
Wine, oil, refreshment ; he was healed : — 
I had myself a wound concealed ; 
But from that hour forgot the smart, 
And Peace bound up my broken heart. 

" In prison I saw him next, condemned 
To meet a traitor's doom at morn : 
The tide of lying tongues I stemmed. 

And honored him midst shame and scorn. 
!My friendship's utmost zeal to try, 
He asked if I for him would die ; 
Tlie flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, 
But the free sphit cried, ' I will.' 



"MEMORIAL DAYS." 253 

" Then in a moment to my view, 

The stranger darted from disguise ; 

Tlie tokens in his liands I linew, 
My Saviour stood before my eyes. 

He spake, and my poor name He named : 

' Of me tliou liast not been ashamed ; 

These deeds shall tliy memorial be ; 

Fear not, thou didst them unto Me.' " 

Among the " memorial days " which mark at intervals 
the progress of the ecclesiastical year among the Mora- 
vians, is the 12th of May, on which the congregations 
commemorate the " agreement to the first orders or sta- 
tutes " of the Brethren, as promulgated at Ilerrnhut in 
1727. The centenary celebration of this event led Mont- 
gomery to Ockbrook, where he spent a few weeks very 
pleasantly between the religious services of the festival, 
and his out-door walks in the finest season of the year. 
Of his literary occupation while there, he thus writes to 
John Holland : 

" I have with difficulty found time to fulfil my promise 
to-day. It means nothing now ; but the fact means every- 
thing. I have been greatly engaged since I came hither, 
principally indeed with pen, ink, and paper; yet I know 
no three thinjys more unmanageable than these when 
they fairly take possession of hands, liead, and heart, as 
they have lately done of mine, — sometimes, I fear, to 
little purpose, — again I hope. In truth, the weather 
within me — that is, the weather on the Pelican Island — ■ 
much resembles this froward, stormy, winter-like spring, 
with gleams of sunshine, and now and then a breath of 
air that tunis all to paradise — but Paradise Lost soon 

follows Paradise Found with me. Pray give my best re- 
22 



254 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

membrance to Mr. Blackwell ; and tell Miss Gales I will 
write to her as soon as my burtlien is a little lighter." 

In the antumn of this year Montgomery visited the 
north of England on a Bible tour, in company Avitli his 
friend Rowland Hodgson. They were at Barnard Castle 
on the 28th of August, and at Darlington on the 4th 
of September : they also attended a meeting at Kich- 
mond, when the poet, in his speech, made an affecting 
allusion to Herbert Knowles, once a pupil in the school 
there, and whose well-known stanzas written in the church- 
yard, " Methinks it is good to be here," &c., he repeated 
with deep emotion. On the 10th of September they at- 
tended a meeting at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at which were 
also present Dr. Steinkopff, foreign secretary of the Bible 
Society, and Dr. Marshman, the Baptist missionary fi-ora 
Serampore. Montgomery addressed the audience at con- 
siderable length, giving, as he often did, additional inter- 
est to his remarks by the charm of local allusion. 

The ideal of a new poem had been floating in his mind 
for several years; ever since 1818, he tells us, when he 
read the narrative of a voyage in the Pacific, in which 
many islands of the Australian group were described as 
the solitary haunts of innumerable pelicans, where gener- 
ations of birds had lived and died as unseen as unsung by 
man. 

His imagination seized hold of the picture, and though 
for a long time it did Httle but flutter round the scene, the 
outlines of a new poem at last began to shape themselves 
into symmetry and fullness. 

How it began to take form, and how a sudden glance at 
passing objects may quicken into life and beauty the rude 
material of our thought, the poet himself reveals : 

" Long at a loss for a leading idea, as I was returning 



"PELICAN ISLAND." 255 

to Sheffield from Scarborough last autumn, with my friend 
Mr. Hodgson, my attention was forcibly arrested by the 
singular ajDpearance of the country about Thorp Arch, 
which was so completely flooded, that only a few of the 
more prominent points of ground were seen, like green 
islands amidst the lake. By some involuntary association 
of ideas, I was jiowerfully reminded of the Pelican Island. 
In a moment the radical thought of which I had been 
so long in quest rushed into my mind ; and I saw the 
whole plan of my poem from beginning to end. I im- 
mediately began the subject in blank verse ; and by the 
time we reached Ferrybridge, I had composed a number 
of lines, which I wrote down Avith my pencil in the inn 
there ; and from that time to the present I have labored 
incessantly at the work, and now hope that its execution 
will be in some degree comparable to my conception of the 
subject." 

In the warm glow of this new-born fervor, the poet 
wrought, with a loving diligence. Another work graced 
his name. Of its reception, and the author's feelings, we 
gather something from a letter to his friend Everett : 

" The Pelican Island certainly has been a puzzle, not 
in its title only, which set conjecture concerning its plot 
at defiance, but in its development of that imdiscoverable 
l^lot. Whatever be its faults or its merits, they are not 
of- a common-place character, for they commanded earlier 
and more particular notice from that fraternity of dictatoi's, 
the reviewers, than any previous publication of mine had 
done ; and they have caused more diversity of opinion also 
among those gentlemen, every one of whom is infallible by 
himself, but taken together they are quite as fallible as 
those who most fear them could desire. There has been 
so much happy contradiction among these authorities re- 



256 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

specting the Pelican Island^ that it would be hard to 
find a sentence of censure or commendation in one of 
their critiques, which has not been reversed in another. 
Where doctors differ, this should be so ; the jDublic will 
in due time settle all differences, and form a judgment 
as independent of them as if they had never existed. 
Meanwhile the author's nerves must be exercised by 
every species of torture or transport, which the opinions 
of those who have his credit at their mercy can inflict 
or awaken, in the presence of his contemporaries, who 
at such a time, in his morbid imagination, have all their 
eyes upon him, like those of a mob upon the victim 
at an execution, and all their ears oj^en to the sarcasms 
and plaudits that are poured upon him. Having now 
nearly passed this ordeal, and been thus far jDretty favor- 
ably treated, I am gradually recovering my usual tone 
of feeling, and resigning my poem and myself to what 
may await us in the ordinary course of this world's af- 
fairs. Circumstances are daily occurring which remind 
me that I have every day a less stake in the interests of 
the present life than I had before, and that the things of 
eternity are becoming of more awful and imminent im- 
portance to me than they have hitherto been. I have 
no room, however, to moralize at present, but I can say 
truly that I desire to be delivered from this bondage 
of corruption, and brought into the glorious liberty of 
the children of God. Then will the praise or condemna- 
tion of man on my vain labors to please him, and to 
gratify myself, as a poet, be of little influence either 
to depress or exalt above measure my too susceptible 
feelings, in whatever relates to that object of my past 
(perhaps my present) idolatry, the fame which I once 



"PELICAN ISLAND" PUBLISHED. 257 

thought the most desirable good under heaven, I must 
turn to other subjects in your letter." 

Pelican Island^ published in 1827, was the last of Mr. 
Montgomery's longer poems. Descriptive, as it is, of a 
solitary contemplation of nature in her manifold changes 
and forms of life, a graceful fancy and a delicate appre- 
hension of the uncaused cause 

" of eflfects that seemed spontaneous 

And sprang in infinite succession, linked 
"With kindred issues, infinite as they, 
For which Almighty skill had laid the train, 
Even in the elements of chaos, — whence 
The unravelling clew not for a moment lost 
Hold of the silent hand that drew it out," 

mark the poem. Leading reviewers of the time pro- 
nounced some portions of it Miltonic ; the deficiency 
which characterizes all his larger productions — want of 
unity — is no less obvious in this. A pati'iarchal gran- 
deur and solemnity are impressed, on its close : 

" The world grows darker, lonelier, and more silent. 
As I go down into the vale of years : 
Tor the grave's shadows lengthen in advance, 
And the grave's loneliness appalls my spirit. 
And the grave's silence sinks into my heart, 
Till I forget existence, in the thought 
Of non-existence, buried for a wliile 
In the stiU sepulchre of my own mind, 
Itself imperishable : — ah ! that word, 
Like the archangel's trumpet, wakes me up 
To deatliless resurrection. Heaven and earth 
Shall pass away, but that which thinks within me 
Must think forever ; that which feels, must feel : 
I am, and I can never cease to be. 
22* 



258 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Oh, thou that readest I take this parable 

Home to thy bosom ; think as I have tlioiight, 

And feel as I have felt, through all the changes 

Which Time, Life, Death, the world's great actors, ■wrought, 

While centuries swept Uke morning dreams before me, 

And thou shalt find this moral to my song : 

Thou art and thou canst never cease to be ; 

What then are Time, Life, Death, the World, to thee ? 

I may not answer ; ask Eternity." 

"At the beginning of the summer of 1828, Mont- 
gomery," we extract from his English biography, "was 
again deeply engaged Avith the question of negro slavery. 
Meetings had been held in other towns to further the 
entire abolition of that abominable system ; and it was 
now the turn of the abolitionists in Sheffield to come for- 
ward as became them in this mighty movement. Upon 
the poet devolved the duty of calling his townspeople 
together, drawing up resolutions to lay before them, and 
preparing a petition to Parliament. This was an affair of 
considerable delicacy ; for while most of the inhabitants, 
who thought on the subject at all, were agreed as to the 
desirableness, as well as the practicability of putting an 
end to slavery in the British dominions, they differed ma- 
terially about the time and the manner of doing it. Mont- 
gomery, whose prudence happily was commensurate with 
his enthusiasm, so managed the matter, that all parties, 
even the most scrupulous, could concur at least in the 
prayer of the petition ; while others, who overlooked all 
conflicting considerations in the admitted flict that here 
was a monster evil which ought to be remedied, Avere 
pleased with the placard calling the meeting, in Avhich 
Montgomery had instructed the printer to use the largest 
type he had in the first of the two words of the head- 



VISIT TO MRS. IIEMANS. 259 

line — ' No Slavery !' The meeting was held on the 9tli 
of June, when Montgomery sjDoke at great length, and 
with equal propriety and effect." * 

In the autumn he journeyed in Wales. Mrs. Hemans 
tells us of seeing him : 

" I had an interesting visit a few days since from the 
poet Montgomery, not the new aspirant to that name, but 
the ' real Peter Bell.' He is very pleasing in manner and 
countenance, notwithstanding a mass of troubled, stream- 
ing, meteo7'ic-looking hah; that seemed as if it had just been 
contending with the blasts of Snowdon, from which he 
had just returned full of animation and enthusiasm. lie 
complained much in the course of conversation, and I 
heartily joined with him, of the fancy which wise people 
have in the present times for setting one right • cheating 
one, that is, out of all the pretty old legends and stories, 
in the place of wliich they want to establish dull facts. 

* This and similar meetings in different parts of tlio country were aux- 
iliary to one -which was held in Exeter Hall in the month of March, and 
at which Lord Brougham presided. Although not personally present at 
this great metropolitan gathering of anti-slavery delegates, Montgomery's 
words were heard, and his spirit felt, even on that occasion, in a way 
which will not soon be forgotten by those individuals who hstened to the 
animating speech of tlie Rev. J. Carlisle, of Belfast, and joined in the ap- 
plause which followed its concluding sentiment : 

" "Wliere a tyrant never trod, 

"Where a slave was never known, 
But where Nature worships God, 

In the wilderness alone — 
Thither, thither, would I roam ; 

There my children may be free ; 
I for them will find a home, 

They shall find a grave for me." 

Wanderer o^ Switzerland. Part vi., 5 



260 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

We mutually grumbled about Fair Kosamond, Queen 
Eleanor and the poisoned wound, Richard the Tliird and 
bis bump-back ; but agreed most resolutely that nothing 
should ever induce us to give up William Tell." 

"The new aspirant" here alluded to was a clergyman 
bearing the same name (Robert Montgomery), whose 
maiden cifort was equivocally heralded — "Montgomery's 
New Poem, The Omnipresence of the Deity." Both 
friends and booksellers were misled, and James had to 
bear the brunt of undeserved criticism, and what was 
more painful and provoking, indiscriminate puffing. 

A letter from Southey : 

" Keswick, April 28, 1829. 
"Mt Dear Moj^tgomery, 

" I received your parcel just long enough ago to have 
read the brief note which it contained from my dear and 
good old friend, Joseph Cottle, your letter, and your In- 
troductory Essay to the Pilgrim'' s Progress. First, let me 
thank you for your letter, for the books, and for the kind 
manner in which you remember one who always remem- 
bers you with respect and admiration, and with as much 
affection as can be felt for one of whom, much to his own 
regret, he personally knows so little. Then let me com- 
plain of you for supposing I should not agree with you in 
your estimate either of the character or the genius of 
John Bunyan, a name which I never mention without 
honor, nor think of without j^leasure. I am not conscious 
of any feeling, thought, word, or deed, at any time of my 
life, which could have led you to imagine that in this case 
I was morally and intellectually blind. Indeed, when I 
was applied to by an old acquaintance, on the 2:)art of Mr. 
Major the bookseller, to perform an office which I did not 



SOUTHEY'S OPINION OF BUNYAN. 261 

till this day know that you had performed before me, 
the motive which induced me to accept the offer was 
pm-e Uking for the task, out of pure love for the author 
and the book. 

" Had I known of your edition, I should certainly and 
at once have declined the proposal. But I am glad that 
I did not know it : ignorance, which in some cases is said 
to be bhss, has been good fortune here. Yours is a criti- 
cal essay, mine will be a biographical one ; and we shall 
have nothing in common but the desire to do honor to the 
author, and to introduce the book into new circles (if that 
can be), except what I shall borrow from you thankfully. 

"I will take care that a copy of my intended edition 
shall be sent to you as soon as it is ready, which the pub- 
lisher intends it to be in the end of autumn. 

"I am almost hojDcless when I ask. Will you come and 
see me, and let me row you on the lake, and guide you 
upon some of these mountains ? You are not in harness 
now ; and I, who shall never be out of it, have always 
leisure to enjoy the company of a friend. I am going with 
my family to the Isle of Man for change of air and sea- 
bathing, which may benefit some of my daughters, and 
also was a needful removal for myself, when the hot 
weather comes, to prevent or cut short that troublesome 
periodical disease which is now known by the name of the 
Hay-asthma^ and the habit of which I hope I have weak' 
ened, if not broken, by travelling at the time of its recur' 
rence. Our stay will not be extended beyond the end of 
June. If you come to us in July — the earlier the better 
— you shall have a cordial welcome ; and you shall find 
me the same person in private that you have known me 
in print. Last year I underwent an operation which has 
restored me to the free use of my strength in walking, 



262 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

after being crijipled many years by a sore infirmity: I 
thank God it has been effectually removed, and I am once 
more a sound man, able to accompany yon for a whole 
day's excursion. If you have not seen this country, you 
ought to see it ; and if you have, you will know it is worth 
seeing again. And I should like to show you the books 
which are the pride of my eye and the joy of my heart, 
the only treasure which I have ever been anxious of heap- 
ing together, and to read to you the papers which I have 
in progress, and to tell you the projects — so many of 
which death will cut short — of which I have dreamt, or 
still hope to execute, and to talk vvdth you of many things. 
Now tell me you will come, and believe me yours, always 
with affectionate respect and regard, 

"ROBEET SoUTnEY." 

We find Montgomery a few weeks later in Keswick, but 
not in response to this cordial invitation. In company 
with Mr. Rowland Hodgson, he is going north in behalf 
of the Bible cause, and their route lay through Keswick, 
whose scenery and society had a double claim upon the 
poefs heart. 

Of his journey and enjoyments, let us hear from himself: 
" We attended six Bible meetings between Monday and 
Friday, and yesterday was the first breathing time that we 
could really enjoy ; yet the enjoyment v/as perhajis the 
hardest fatigue we have yet undergone. Some kind ladies, 
who accompanied us from Kendal, made a party for an 
excursion. We breakfasted on the banks of Windermere, 
travelled over the intervening hills to Grasmere, and 
thence to Ilydal, concluding the round by a visit to Mr. 
Wordsworth, so that my spirits were sufiiciently exhausted 
on our return hither to justify a ramble alone to recruit 



AMONG THE LAKES AND "LIONS." 2G3 

them ; and tbeii going further than I mtendecl, the oi)por- 
tunity of writing to Sheffield was gone by ; and thus, as I 
have said, a moment lost is lost forever ! 

" I have little to say concerning myself since I came 
away. I might make many complaints of personal mfir- 
mities, and mental sufferings, and so forth, which are my 
daily crosses when I am from home, and make travelling, 
with all its healthful exercise and exhilarating changes 
of scene and society, httle better than penance and pil- 
grimage to me ; though in retrospect it always furnishes 
abundant materials for thought, for thankfulness, and for 
ho^Q also. Mercy and goodness hitherto, as on all former 
occasions, have followed me every step of the way; and 
the close of every stage and every day I have had cause 
to be humble and happy, though too often I have been 
neither one nor the other, as I ought to be. I cannot 
to-day — indeed, it must be put off till I can do it with 
the living voice — give you any particulars of our adven- 
tures : there have been none of a romantic character, nor 
any descriptive of the scenery which Ave have noticed, — 
indeed, we are only just entering mto Lake-land ; the 
promise is great, and it will be my own fault if I am dis- 
appointed. I may just say that I have seen the greatest 
lion here, — "Wordsworth ; and the dens of two others, — 
the Opium Eater's, and Professor Wilson's (Christopher 
North), Wordsworth's house and grounds are all that 
a poet could wish for in reason and reverie ; for after 
having seen them and him, I said they were more beauti- 
ful and apx>ropriate than he himself could have invented 
if he had the whole lakes, mountains, and all, to have 
called into an arrangement of his own, in the haj^piest 
mood of his own mind. De Quincey's cottage is a little 
nutshell of a house \ but though I could discern nothing 



264 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

attractive about it, I should have been glad to have 
peeped in, if I could have been to him what he was to 
me — invisible. Professor Wilson's is a small, handsome 
house and pleasure ground, of which I merely caught a 
glimpse, as we rolled through the dust of the road be- 
fore the slope on which it stands." 

To Sarah Gales at Sheffield : 

"This day (June 11), immediately after reading Mr. 
Bennett's and Mr. Wilberforce's letters — both of which I 
shall duly answer — I set out, "svith Mr, Hodgson's two 
servants and a guide, to Skiddaw, though I had some 
of the weight of Ilelvellyn yet on my shoulders. The 
morning was fine, but the prosi:)ect below was hazy, and 
my mind was too much occupied with the South Sea Is- 
lands, and all the strange and savage lands and oceans 
which our friend had visited during his eight years' cir- 
cumnavigation of the world, to notice, as I otherwise 
might have done, the immensity of land and sea, in 
every diversity of form, that lay beneath my feet. On 
the very summit, after I had breathed my fervent thanks- 
giving to God for all the goodness and mercy that had 
accompanied him on all his way, I wrote his name on a 
slate-stone with a lead pencil, and the date of his landing 
in England. This I threw upon a jiile that suj^ports the 
flag-staff on the highest peak ; and though mortal eye 
may never see the record, and the first shower may ef- 
face it, I felt something more than romantic pleasure in 
writing and leaving this memorial there of the best intel- 
Hgence which we have received from him since he sailed, 
— his happy return home. Thomas, Joseph, and I then 
heartily drank his good health and safe convoy to Shef- 
field in pure brandy, for we could not find a drop of 
water to dilute it. The vast convexity of the mountain 



LETTER TO JOHN HOLLAND. 265 

is covered with thin broken pieces of slate, the storms 
of ages having shattered the original crest of rock. I 
tliought it looked like the field of the battle of Armaged- 
don, strewn with the splinters of swords, and shields, and 
the wreck of armor, long after the bodies of the slain 
had been devom-ed by the fowls of heaven. Farewell, 
God bless you !" 
To John HoUand : 

"Kirkby Lonsdale, June 20, 1829. 
" My Deak Friexd, 

" Your kind letter reached me at Penrith on Monday 
morning. "We have had such a week of hurry and jour- 
neying from place to place, and I have been occasionally 
so unwell from anxiety among strangers, and exhaustion 
from thinking to httle purpose, and speaking I hope not 
always to none, that I have had neither spirit nor leisure 
to write. Even kindness — and nothing but kindness have 
we experienced — is oppressive to one so framed as I am ; 
and though I am full of complaints at this moment, yet 
if I were to utter them they would be all against myself, 
and would probably awaken very imjaerfect sympathy in 
the minds of those most willing to compassionate me, — 
for I hope they would be scarcely mtelligible. I will 
therefore say no more concerning them. Arrangements 
have been made for Bible meetings on four successive 
days next week, from Monday to Thursday inclusive ; 
and if we happily survive so much exertion, excitement, 
and enjoyment, as they promise, — judging by what simi- 
lar opportunities have already produced or required, — 
we hope to reach Sheffield on Saturday afternoon, June 
27, by way of Settle, SkijDton, Colne, Bradford, Wake- 
field, and Barnsley. Please to request Mr. Blackwell to 
23 



266 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

forward the Iris, addressed to me, at the Post Office, 
SkiiDton, where any letter from home may also meet me 
if despatched not later than Tuesday, after which it will 
be uncertain where I may be caught. You mention the 
haunts of poets among the mountains where I have been 
wandering ; and I doubt not, if you had been in my cii'- 
cumstances, you would have much more benefited by the 
opportunity of indulging honorable curiosity than I have 
done. I wish, indeed, I had more of your spirit than I 
have ; for I am sure (if I understand you rightly) I should 
then escape many miseries, and put myself in the way of 
many felicities, instead of reversing the law of nature, as 
I often do, to fall from mere fear of them into the former, 
and shrink, I know not why, from the latter, even when 
they court me. However, I have not been without many 
delightful lucid intervals since I left home, and have liad 
the hardihood not only to call upon Wordsworth, with 
a body-guard of fair ladies, and a poet, the son of a poet, 
to introduce me ; but, on the last clay of our stay at Kes- 
wick, I ventured to rap at the door of my friend the 
laureate, though I knew that he and his family were 
gone from home; but I heard that Mrs. Coleridge was 
keeping house for him, and, on the ground of former ac- 
quaintance Avith her husband, I plucked up couiage to 
introduce myself to her, and avail myself of the opportu- 
nity of looking at the well-furnished shelves and through 
the windows of the jioet's study. His house and library 
are such as even you, with all your moderation, might 
be forgiven for coveting — with the salvo, that he should 
be no poorer. But I cannot give any particulars here, 
writing as I do in an inn, and in great haste, not know- 
ing Avhen I may have another leisure hour, as we are 
going off almost immediately to Casterton, where we are 



AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 2G7 

to be entertained a clay or two in the hospitable family 
of W. W. Cams Wilson, father to the Rev. W. Cams 
Wilson, a clergyman in this neighborhood, who has been 
several times at Sheffield, on Christian anniversary occa^ 
sions, and of whom I may tell you something more on 
my return. I think I mentioned, in my last letter to the 
Misses Gales, that I had ascended both Helvellyn and 
Skiddaw. From the top of the former I saw, for the 
first time since I left it, more than forty years ago, my 
native country. Beyond the Solway Frith the undulat- 
ing hills of Scotland, in a blue-grey line (the atmosphere 
being very hazy), were dimly discernible. I had not cal- 
culated on this ; and the scene took me so by surprise, 
that, though I was not prepared by any romantic antici- 
pation, the singular motion which stirred my spirit within 
me, and made the blood in my veins, as it were, run 
back to the fountain from which they were filled, was 
even more deeply agitating than I could have imagined. 
At Keswick I had the yet more mysterious pleasure of 
shaking hands with a being thrice as old as Methuselah 
(I presume), though I cannot tell the age of the invisible 
within a few hundred years. And it icas an invisible 
literally, for the hand that I grasped came out of dai'k- 
ness, and was the color of darkness — 'black, but comely;' 
it was a left hand, and evidently that of a female, very 
small, and most delicately proportioned, 'With fingers 
long, and fit to touch the lute.' Yet neither the lady's 
age, nor the beauty of that sj)ecimen of herself wliich 
was presented to my eye, tempted me to put a gold ring 
on the wedding finger. I cannot describe the strange 
sensation which I experienced when this, the hand of a 
mummy (and nothing but the hand of a mummy), was 
put into mine, and I examined it as a relic of a fellow- 



268 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

creature, 'of the first order of fine forms,' who might 
have been Pharaoh's daughter herself, or her maid, and 
this the very hand that first touched the ark of buh-ushes, 
and, lifting up the veil, disclosed the face of the infant 
Moses to the compassionate friends — 'and behold the 
babe wept.' There, I must leave you to finish the pic- 
ture and imagine the rest of my reverie, for I must 
conclude. Pen and ink are both so bad that I can 
scrawl no more, and my time is gone. I was on a jour- 
ney by land and water across Windermere and the inter- 
vening hills to the head of Coniston "Water, on Whit 
Monday. In a lovely, lonely lane near the latter, I walked 
during the teachers' meeting in the afternoon. My heart 
overflowed with afiectionate remembrance of the occasions 
on which I had in former years spent so many happy 
hours, and my prayers were fervently ofiered for you 
all. Pray give my kmdest regards to my dear friends in 
the Ilartshead. If I do not write to them again they 
may expect me this day fortnight, as above intimated. 
Remember me respectfully to Mr. Blackwell and Mr. 
Roberts." 

We do not learn exactly when the two friends returned 
to Shefiield ; the latest date of any memento of their tour 
is that of the following lines, composed for Miss Elizabeth 
Carus Wilson, of Casterton, on the anniversary of her 
biitliday, June 22, 1829: 

" Another year of trial here 

At length has passed away ; 
But Mercy crowned its weary round 

AVitli one more Sabbath day ; 
Though each bad been a day of grace, 
It was the last that won the race. 



BIRTHDAY STANZAS. 269 

" When suffering life shall end its strife 

In death's serene repose ; 
Be Sabbath rest, on Jesus' breast, 

Its everlasting close ; 
Your daily cross may you lay down, 
To gain an everlasting crown ! " 



23 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RETURN OF MR. BENNETT — DEATH OF DANIEL. TYREMAN — EDITORIAL 
DUTIES — LETTER OF ADVICE TO A YOUNG POET — LECTURES IN LON- 
DON UPON POETRY — DK. MILNOR — VOYAGES AND TRAVELS OF TYRE- 
MAN AND DENNETT — LETTER TO SAMUEL DUNN — ANTI-SLAVERY 
REJOICINGS. 

Ox the 5th of June, 1829, Mr. Bennett landed at Deal, 
and the following mornmg proceeded to London, from 
whence he wrote to Montgomery: 

" This is ' my dear, my native land ! ' Bless the Lord, 

my soul ! and forget not aU his benefits ! As we ]3ro- 
ceeded from Deal to Margate, surely never landscape ap- 
peared, more beautiful to human being than all the country 
did to me ; ' the eye was never satisfied with seeing nor 
the ear with hearing' the rural sights and rural sounds 
which convinced my heart that I was at length got home. 
The grass, the flowers, the trees, in gardens, fields, and 
hedgerows, all English in color, and form, and fragrance, 
especially the golden clusters of the laburnum, and. the 
prodigality of ' milk-white thorn,' reminded me of all that 

1 had loved in youth, and was now again privileged to be- 
hold and enjoy after years of absence in strange climes." 

On the 11th Montgomery writes to Bennett : 
" Your last letter, and the most welcome of all that have 
been received from you, from every quarter of the world, 



RETURN OF MR. BENNETT. 271 

because it is the last, and written on British ground, 
reached me at this place just when I was setting out on an 
expedition to the top of Skiddaw. I hastily read it, and 
with a heart overflowing with joy at the good tidings 
which it brought of your arrival, I proceeded on my way, 
leaving to our good friend, Mr. R. Hodgson, to occupy 
the first pages of a letter of congratulation, Avhich we at 
once determined to send to you, on your long-wished-for 
and now happily-accomplished return to your native coun- 
try. But though my limbs, with the occasional help of a 
pony, bore me to the height of the magnificent mountain 
above named, and though my eyes surveyed an immensity 
of horizon, comprehending land and sea, lakes, rivers, hills, 
and woods, in the richest diversity, all spread like a map 
beneath my feet, my mind, but especially my heart, has 
been engaged with you all the forenoon ; and from the 
stupendous elevation on which I stood, I saw not only the 
adjacent portions of the British Isles, which every eye may 
see on any clear day from thence, but I traced you all 
round the world, and the isles of the South Seas, New 
Zealand, New Holland, China, the two Indies, Madagascar, 
South Africa, St. Plelena, and all the oceans you have 
crossed, dividing and connecting the utmost regions of the 
earth, even to the very spot where you landed at length 
on our own dear shores — all these were present to my 
spirit, and in each of these I could perceive that goodness 
and mercy had followed you all the days of your long ab- 
sence on a circumnavigation of charity, the first that has 
been made by an individual since man fell, and the promise 
of a Saviour was given. I will not flatter jon ; I know it 
will humble you when I say that you are, in this respect, 
the most privileged of all that have lived, or do live, hav- 
ing alone done what never was before attempted, and what 



272 LIFE OF MONTGOMEEY. 

your late honored and lamented companion was not al- 
lowed to acliieve : the glory thus granted to you, you will 
lay at the Redeemer's feet, and say, it is the Lord's doing 
that I have been exalted to do this ; and to his name be 
all the praise. On the summit of Skiddaw, under the blue 
infinity of heaven above, and in the presence of the widest 
compass of earth I ever saw, except once before, I laid my 
thank-offering on that altar not made with hands, to Him 
who has been the refuge of his people through all genera- 
tions ; to Him who, ' before the mountains were brought 
forth, %cas God.'' I laid my thank-offering to Him there^ 
for all the deliverances which He has wrought for you, 
for all the mercies he has conferred iq^on you, for all the 
good Avhich I believe has been done by you, during your 
long labors and many sufferings, and especially for this last 
evidence of his loving-khidness towards you, and towards 
us, too, in answering our prayers, and bringing you safe to 
our own land and yours ; and my heart's desire and prayer 
for you was, that you may yet long be spared to tell of his 
goodness and his wonderful works. Mr. Hodgson has so 
fully expressed my feelings in expressing his own, that I 
need add nothing further than ' God bless you!'* Yea, 
and you shall be blessed." 

Mr. Bennett returned alone, after an absence of eight 
years, his excellent colleague in the deputation. Rev. 
Daniel Tyreman, having died at Madagascar on his way 
home, July 30, 1828. 

The Independent chapel at Newport, in the Isle of 
Wight, where for seventeen years he was a faithful min- 
ister of the Gospel, reared a monument to his memory, 
with an inscription by Montgomery, expressing the fullness 
of trust with which the dying minister gave himself into 
the keeping of a faithful and unchanging God : 



NEW EDITORIAL DUTIES. 273 

" ' The covenant of grace ' shall stand 

"When heaven and earth depart ; 
On this he laid his dying hand, 

And clasped it to his heart. 
In a strange land, where sudden death 

Stopt his unfinished race, 
This was the plea of his last breath — 

' The covenant of grace.' " 

The copious journals of the Deputation were now in 
the hands of the London Missionary Society, to be recast 
for publication. A suitable editor was needed, and Mr. 
Montgomery was selected for the task, a work which he 
undertook with alacrity, from the strong hold which both 
the Deputation and its object had upon his jDcrsonal affec- 
tions and Christian sympathies. 

Some idea of the amount of labor to be done may be 
gained by thinking of reducing fifty manuscript volumes to 
a moderate size for jDubhcation. 

" Most of my leisure time for three months," he tells us, 
Avhen fairly on it, " has been employed, and it wUl take at 
least nine months more to complete it. I therefore must 
stay at home," he says to the solicitations of his out-of-town 
friends, " or, if I go, take my work with me." 

Christmas, with the close of the old year (1829), and the 
beginning of the new, was passed with Mr. Bennett at the 
house of his friend's nephew, Mr. M'Coy, at Hackney, a 
little village on the edge of the metropolis. 

A memorial of the visit, introducing us to the young 
host and his family is pleasantly jotted down by their poet 
guest : 



274 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 



"for MRS. EDWARD m'cOY. 

" Thus hath the man of wisdom spoken ; 
' A threefold cord is not soon broken.' " — Prov. 

" Three lines of life entwined in one 

The poet's eye can see, 
From Time's swift wheel, by moments spim, 
To reach infinity. 

" The first your own, my gentle friend, 

Then his, whom you call 'lord; ' 
The third, your babe's ; these softly blend, 
And form a threefold cord. 

" Long may they thus together hold 

In sweet communion here. 

Ere each in turn, infirm and old, 

From earth shall disappear, 

" But must they then be sundered ? No, 
Like minghng rays of light, 
"Where heaven's eternal splendors glow, 
These fi-agmcnts shall unite, 

" To form a threefold cord above, 
By Mercy interwound. 
And to the throne of sovereign love 
Indissolubly bound. 

" My wish, prayer, hope, these words betoken, 
That threefold cord be ' never ' broken. 

"Hackney, January i:^, 1830." 

This letter is to Mr. Bennett, at Tryon's Place, Hackney : 

"Sheffield, January 28, 1830. 
"My Dear Friend, 

" At length I have an opj^ort unity of sending a line to 



LETTEli TO BENNETT. 275 

you, to say on paper what my heart has said a liundrod 
times in your presence, if you could have heard it speak, 
when Ave were together of late, side by side in coaches, 
arm in arm on open roads, or threading- the everlasting 
mazes of those live labyrinths, the streets of London, or 
— for I must go a little further — when Ave have sat to- 
gether in the house of God, or face to face at the hos- 
pitable fireside in Tryon's Place [Hackney] and elsewhere. 
Turn back to the first four lines of the antecedent con- 
nection — how much I felt myself indebted to your deh- 
cate, yet assiduous and persevering kindness to me, on 
our London and country visits during the severe weather 
of Christmas and the nev,^ year : 1829 and 1830 were ab- 
solutely frozen together at the meeting pomts, but our 
hearts were 7iot frozen, — they often burned within us by 
the way, wdien we talked of those things that were most 
dear and precious to us both. I am glad to learn from 
Mr. M'Coy that you continue to bear the sharp winter 
cold with comparative comfort, notwithstanding your long 
residence in tropical climates. Your mind must rule your 
body ; and, as it has a firmness for endurance beyond that 
of any man I ever knew, it surely communicates to the 
body a temperature which, if it does not neutralize, qual- 
ifies the extremes of icy rigor and torrid feiwor to itself. 
May you long enjoy the blessing of a sound mind in a 
sound body, but especially of a heart right in the sight 
of God, which shall render all his dispensations, afflictive 
or joyous, right in your sight. This is the Christian's 
secret of happiness ; may you ever be in possession of it 
in this woi-ld of trials, where faith is perpetually put to 
proof, and often staggers, not at the promises only, but 
at the wisdom and goodness of God, from our frailty and 
ignorance in judging of his works and ways! 



276 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

"But I hopo you do not spend all your time in the 
open air, breathing and bustling through vapors, and 
clouds, and storms, or plunging through snow-drifts ; some 
of it, nay, a great deal of it, I trust, is employed in read- 
ing those delightful manuscripts which I left Avith you, and 
in writing others yet more delightful for my use, and the 
future benefit of the pubhc. I want, especially at this 
time, at least as soon as you can furnish them, accounts 
respecting your first plunge into the Pacific, when your 
friend, Mr. Tyreman, overturned the canoe, in mounting 
from the edge on board of the ship at anchor, the ordi- 
nation of Ouna and his companion for the mission to the 
Mai-quesas, and the king Horitia's ' little speech,' &c., and 
your misadventure, again, when attempting to land on one 
of the Sandwich Islands. Your personal feelings and situ- 
ation no one but yourself can describe in the first and latter 
of these cases. Do not wait for more materials, but let 
me have these at your earliest convenience : be as brief 
or as wordy as you please. The other subjects, of which 
I left memoranda with Mr. M'Coy, you will attend to in 
succession ; and the earlier the better for yourself, for me, 
and for the work with which I am proceeding as well as I 
can ; but, from illuess since my return home, I have yet 
made but little way, having been becalmed in bed for the 
greater part of last week. A fresh gale, however, has 
sprung up, and in a day or two I expect to be sailing 
with full canvas. Send me your help by furnishing me 
with matter both of your own and Mr. Tyerman's. At 
present I have enough to go on with of the latter ; but 
when you have gone through ten volumes, please to for- 
ward them by coach to me." 

"I certainly do not make haste," he again writes j "but 



LITEEARY LABORS. 277 

yet I go on ; and if not with good sjjeed, at least with 
good will, and unfailing resolution to do my best accord- 
ing to circumstances. The labor, however, is far more 
minute than I exjDected. I thought that little more than 
careful abridgment would be requisite ; but, in truth (ma- 
terials excepted), it costs me as much as original compo- 
sition. I do not, however, repent the undertaking, and 
I will not shrink from any expense of time and thought 
to do justice, if possible, to the subject, and credit to the 
cause. "When you come down at Easter, you will, of 
course, bring with you all the volumes of Mr. Tyerman's 
Journal you may have, at that time, looked over. . . . 
I am infirm and spiritless, excejit Avhen I am vexed into 
something like strong feeling by local and party feuds, 
out of which I cannot disentangle m3'self, and in which I 
deliberately involved myself at first, as a victim, I tnay 
say, that by a well-foreseen sacrifice of personal comfort, 
and what is more dear to me than pecuniary interest, — 
peace of mind, — I might mitigate the strife of tongues, 
and tlie civil war of passions and prejudices, in this town, 
on the subject of Water Companies." 

An out-spoken letter this, in reply to an unfledged poet 
asking advice from a veteran bird : 

"Deak Sir, 

"I am almost fretted out of the little meekness that 
remains to me after the wear and tear of more than three- 
score years, principally by literary clients who think be- 
cause they often see ray name in ^^rint, that there must 
needs be a potency in it not only to command fame and 
fortune for the owner, but to recommend all who can 
secure the sanction of it in any way to the same enviable 

rewards of rhyming labors. ' All is not gold that glitters.' 
124 



278 LIFE OF MONTGOMEEY. 

Had not a bountiful Providence otherwise loaded me with 
benefits, in my humblest estate, equal to my few wants, 
poetry would not have enriched me. It found me poor, 
and it would have kept me so to the end, unless I had 
pursued its reveries in a very different path from that 
which I chose after the folly and madness of youth had 
taught me that 'all was vanity and vexation of spirit.' 
Whether ' fame and fortune ' would have been mine in a 
greater proportion had I otherwise practised my art, I 
know not, and regret not to remain ignorant; but hav- 
ing proved for myself that ' the way of transgressors is 
hard,' I am deeply and humbly thankful that, as a poet 
at least, I endeavored to depart from it before an accel- 
erated bias had carried me onward to irretrievable ruin 
in it. It is not that I am unwilling to aid young aspirants 
in their early exertions — I have the will and not the power 
to serve them. Hence, instead of cheering them on in 
their course, I am compelled in honesty and truth to 
warn them against too great reliance cither on their 
own talents however promising, or the i^atronage of the 
public however liberally-performing in those splendid cases 
which are the exceptions and not the usage of the arbitraiy 
rule in the Chancery of Parnassus, wherein woe to the 
man Avho has a suit ! Whatever be the equity of his cause, 
it may last him — not to say it may cost him — his life ; 
unless he abandons it after the first decree made either 
in his favor or against him — for of two evils the last is 
the lesser : if the judgment be against him, he has only 
lost what he intended to win ; if he wins, what does he 
do ? retire with gains ? No, he hazards another stake, 
when it is a hundred to one but he loses what he had 
got, and thus is not merely disappointed but dishon- 
ored. 



ADVICE TO A rOETASTER. 279 

" Bat I am running away from you and your letter wliile 
I am lamenting over other correspondents and their epistles, 
which I am obliged to answer by breaking to their hearts 
the promises Avhich they themselves made to their hopes 
when they determined to make me their counsellor and 
their guide on their journey up 'the steep,' so 'hard to 
cUmb,' ' where Fame's proud temple shines from far.' 
Though you were in some respects one of this number, 
and I may have more than once made your heart ache 
with the discouragements which I have in compassion as 
well as in sincerity thrown in your way as a candidate 
for poetical honors, yet as you have other views and other 
resources in your literary exercises and experiments, I may 
Conscientiously bid you go forward, and congratulate you 
on having chosen a better part, in your commendable pur- 
poses to benefit your generation, than by concentrating 
your energies, and perhaps wasting them on the profitless 
labors of a versifier. You have been happy also in hav- 
ing apparently formed a connection with a publisher of 
that standing and respectability which alFords you the 
chance of an introduction to a circle or class of readers 
both numerous and influential ; while the subjects (those 
in prose, I mean) on which you have hitherto written ai^e 
adapted to please <?co generations, — the reir/nbtg and the 
rising/, whatever be their lot beyond ; for as posterity 
will care very little for any of us except some two or 
three, we need care as little for it : its favor would come 
too late to make us vain, and its neglect will not break 
our hearts in the grave. . . . Don't be alarmed ; I am 
not censuring but counselling, having had no little expe- 
rience in matters of this kind, and wishing to benefit you 
by a lesson which has cost me dear. On no theme, whe- 
ther in prose or rhyme, ought we to lavish all our thoughts 



280 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

mucli less all our words, no more than all our good thoughts 
in corresponding words, but select the best only of each. 
Without literally, or rather servilely, adhering to this rule, 
yet making it the guide of your pen in composition, you 
will gradually acquire a clear, spirited, and comprehensive 
diction that Avill greatly enhance the value of your produc- 
tions 

"I am truly your friend, 

" J. Montgomery. 
" Mr. Edward Farr, Iver, near Uxbridgc." 

In May, Montgomery returned to London to deliver a 
course of lectures upon English Literature before the Royal 
Institution. 

The favor with Avhich these were received, induced the 
managers to engage his services for the next year, when 
his "Lectures upon Poetry" were given. These were 
published two years afterwards, and republished in this 
country by Messrs. Harper, the volume formmg one of 
their series, known as the " Family Library." 

These lectures discuss the Preeminence, the Form, the 
Diction, the various Classes, the Themes, and the Influences 
of Poetry, every word expressing a genuine lover of the 
art, and a just discernment of both its exj)ressiblo and its 
inexpressible elements. 

" Poetry," he says, " is the eldest, the rarest, and the 
most excellent of the fine arts. It was the first fixed form 
of language ; the earliest perpetuation of thought ; it ex- 
isted before prose in history, before music in melody; 
before painting in desci'iption ; and before sculpture in 
imagery. Anterior to the discovery of letters, it was em- 
ployed to communicate the lessons of wisdom, to celebrate 
the achievements of valor, and to promulgate the sanctions 



VINDICATION OF "PIOUS POETRY." 281 

of law. Music was invented to accompany, and painting 
and sculpture to illustrate it." 

The verdict of Johnson upon "pious poetry" in bis life 
of Waller, is analyzed and dissented from. 

" In the end," he says, " it will be found to throw light 
upon a single point only — a point on which there was no 
darkness at all — namely, that the style of devotional 
poetry must be suited to the theme, whether that be a 
subject of piety, or a motive to piety. 

"Those who will take the trouble to examine the passage 
at length will find that all the eloquent dictation contained 
in it affects neither argumentative, descriptive, nor narra- 
tive poetry on sacred themes, as exemplified in the great 
works of Milton, Young, and Cowper. That man has 
neither ear, nor heart, nor imagination to know genuine 
poesy, and to enjoy its sweetest or its subhmest influences, 
who can doubt the supremacy of such passages as the 
'Song of the Angels' in the third, and the 'Morning 
Hymn of Adam and Eve' in the fifth book of 'Paradise 
Lost ;' the first part of the ninth book of the ' Night 
Thoughts ;' and the anticipation of millennial blessedness 
in the sixth book of ' The Task ; ' yet these are on sacred 
subjects, and these are religious poetry. There are but 
four universally and permanently popular long poems in 
the English language — 'Paradise Lost,' 'The Night 
Thoughts, ' ' The Task,' and ' The Seasons.' Of these the 
three former are decidedly religious in their character; 
and of the latter it may be said, that one of the greatest 
charms of Thomson's master-piece is the pure and elevated 
spirit of devotion which occasionally breathes out amid the 
reveries of fancy and the pictures of nature, as though the 
poet had caught sudden and transporting glimpses of the 

Creator himself through the perspective of his works; 
24* 



282 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY, 

while the crowning hymn, at the close, is unquestionably 
one of the most magnificent specimens of verse in any 
language, and only inferior to the inspired prototypes in 
the Book of Psalms, of which it is, for the most part, a 
paraphrase. As much may be said of Pope's ' Messiah,* 
Avhich leaves all his original productions immeasurably 
behind it, in combined elevation of thought, affluence of 
imagery, beauty of diction, and fervency of spirit. 

" It follows, that poetry of the highest order may be 
composed on j^ious themes ; and the fact that three out of 
the only four long poems which are daily reprinted for 
every class of readers among us, are at the same time re- 
ligious — that fact ought forever to silence the cuckoo-note 
which is echoed from one mocking-bird of Parnassus to 
another, that poetry and devotion are incompatible: no 
man in his right mind, who knows what both Avords mean, 
will admit the absurdity for a moment." 

On the influence of the poet, he thus feelingly and elo- 
quently expatiates : 

" He holds a j)erilous talent, on a fearful resiDonsibility, 
who can invent, combine, and fix with inseparable union, 
words, thoughts, and images, and give them motion like 
that of the ])lanets — not to cease till the heavens shall be 
dissolved, and the earth, with the works therein, burnt 
up. Is there a power committed to man so great? Is 
there one that can be more beneficently or more malig- 
nantly exercised ? The deeds of warriors, the decrees of 
princes, the revolutions of empires, do not so much, so 
immediately, so permanently affect the moral character, 
the social condition, the weal and the woe of the human 
race, as the lessons of wisdom or folly, of glory, virtue, 
and piety, pride, revenge, depravity, licentiousness, and 
the converse of these — in the writings of those mysterious 



EXCHANGE OF CHRISTIAN COURTESIES. 283 

beings who have an intellectual existence among us, and 
rule posterity, not ' from tlieir urns,' like dead heroes, 
whose acts only are preserved in remembrance, but by 
their very spirits living, breathing, speaking in their works ; 
therein holding communion with, the spirits of all who read 
or hear their syren or their seraph strains ; and thus 
becoming good or evil angels to successive generations, 
tempting to vice and crime, to misery and destruction ; or 
leading through ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. 
Millions of thoughts and images, fixed in the palpable 
forms of words, and put into perpetual motion by these 
benefactors or scourges of their species, are passing down 
in the track of time, upon the length and breadth of the 
whole earth, blessing or cursing the peoj^le of one age after 
another; and let authors tremble at the annunciation, 
perpetuating the righteousness of aggravating the quiet 
of men whose bones are in the sepulchre, and their souls 
in eternity." 

It was at the anniversary season of this year (1830) that 
Dr. Milnor, of New York, appeared as a delegate from the 
American Bible Society to the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, the first public interchange of Christian sym- 
pathies between these noble institutions. 

When the purport of his visit was made known, he was 
made the bearer of greetings, and commissions of a simi- 
lar nature, from the Tract Society, Sunday-school Union, 
Board of Foreign Missions, and other kindred associations 
to their twin-sisters on the other side of the Atlantic. 

Here he met Wilberforce and Rowland Hill, Fowell 
Buxton, Bickersteth, Gurney, Dr. Chalmers, Wilson, Mont- 
gomery, whose very names are watchwords, stirring the 
soul to loftier aims. 

Dr. Milnor was present at the Wesleyan Missionary So- 



284 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

ciety, the most " animating public meeting " he ever at- 
tended. Freemason's Hall was crowded with gentlemen 
at the anniversary of the Bible Society. George Bennett 
was in the chair of the Sunday-school Union, and Wilber- 
force presided over the Anti-Slavery assembly; gatherings 
where party names were forgotten, and 

" Each fulfilled their part 
With sympathising heart" 

for the on-coming kingdom of the Lord. 

During the summer, which was spent in travelling, Dr. 
Milnor visited Sheffield, and had several dehghtful inter- 
views with Montgomery. Both in public and private they 
took sweet counsel together. At a meeting of the Bible 
associations of the city, we find the Doctor on the 
stand. 

" Mr. Montgomery," he tells us, " made the closing 
speech with a warm glow of feeling, and an affectionate 
importunity of expression. His only difficulty seemed to 
lie in finding vent for the flood of ideas that constantly 
rushed upon his mind. This made him occasionally stam- 
mer a moment, but a short pause always restored his 
self-possession ; and his plain but forcible delivery riveted 
the attention of his hearers." 

After a few days in a " loved circle of Christian spirits," 
Dr. Milnor j^arted from Montgomery at his own house, 
where he took tea, and " passed an hour and a half in de- 
lightful communion of feeling with this gifted poet and 
most devoted Christian." 

He met also Mr. Holland, author of" Summerfield's Life," 
editor of the Zm, and intimate friend of the poet, whose 
biographer he afterwards became. 

Another expression of trans-Atlantic respect was re- 



"JOURNAL OF TYREMAN AND BENNETT." 285 

ceivecl a few months later by Montgomery — a certificate 
of his having been constituted an lionorary member of 
tlie American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions by the payment of one hundred dollars from Henry 
Hill, Esq., of Boston, Massachusetts. It bears the date of 
January, 1832. 

On the first of June appeared in two handsome octavo 
volumes, comprising uj)wards of a thousand pages, the 
" Journal of Voyages and Travels by the Rev. Daniel 
Tycrman, and George Bennett, Esq., deputed from the 
London Missionary Society to visit their various stations 
in the South Sea Islands, China, India, &c., between the 
years 1821 and 1829. Compiled from original documents 
by James Montgomery." The work was illustrated with 
portraits of both the gentlemen of the Deputation, and 
about a dozen views of scenery, engraved from sketches 
made by Mr. Tyerman. In the preface the compiler thus 
alludes to the form and quality of the materials placed at 
his disposal : 

" The documents, ofiicial and private, from which these 
volumes have been composed, were of great bulk, and ex- 
ceedingly multifarious. They consisted of a journal kept 
by both members of the Deputation, jointly during the first 
two years of their travels, and a separate one by Mr. Tyer- 
man, continued nearly to the day of his death, Mr. Ben- 
nett subsequently furnished several interesting narratives 
and other valuable contributions. These materials, how- 
ever, Avere so extensive and miscellaneous, as well as so 
minute, that it became the duty of the compiler, instead 
of abridging or condensing the mass, to- recompose the 
whole in such a form as should enable him to bring forth 
in succession, as they occurred to the travellers themselves, 
the most striking and curious facts relative to their per- 



286 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

sonal adventures, or which came to their knowledge by 
the way." 

This work, we can readily conceive, cost Montgomery a 
great amount of patient and jiainstaking labor ; the au- 
thentic and valuable information which it gave of the 
Polynesian world, with its new forms of life, and its details 
of one of the most striking and successful experiments in 
the modern history of Christianity, make it a work of no 
common value. 

Local causes limited its circulation in England. It was 
republished in this country, and read with the deepest in- 
terest ; the spirit of missions received a new quickening, 
and, what was as good, it insj^ired increasing confidence 
in the practicability and permanency of missionary labor 
among the brethren. 

In order to make a correct estimate of an individual, 
wc seek to learn the prevailing tone of his mind, the un- 
conscious influences which ho exerts upon society, and the 
light in which he views passing events. These will disclose 
the " inner man," which is the only true and genuine 
man. 

Intercourse, in a strong personal friendship, is not neces- 
sarily the best position for a clear discernment of charac- 
ter ; for the partiaUties of friendship are likely to prove 
disturbing forces. 

One remove from this is, perhaps, more favorable : when, 
in sympathy with a man's principles and the leading aim of 
his life, we can have access to a free, copious, and life-long 
correspondence, the natural out-gush of his opinions and 
feelings. It is from this stand-point, the reader has already 
perceived, that we have endeavored to direct his eye to 
Montgomery, in order to learn as far as possible, from per- 



RAVAGES OF THE CHOLERA. 287 

so7ial intercourse, the character and environments of this 
Christian poet. 

Letters, and paragraphs from letters, jottings by the 
way, therefore, form the body and chief interest of the 
jjresent work. On them, floating fragments as they may 
seem, we flow down the current of his daily life. 

No apology is therefore needed for drawing largely 
on his letters, although deficient, in common Avith all his 
prose, in simplicity, directness, and vigor of style ; for 
they are the open windows of his soul, through which is 
breathed the refined and fervent spirit of the man. 

He thus writes to Mr. Bennett : 

"You must be aware, from the newspapers, that since 
the 8th of July, when the first case ai^peared, that new 
pestilence which both walketh in darkness and destroyeth 
at noon-day, — the fearful and mysterious cholera, — has 
been smiting down, on the right hand and on the left, men, 
women, children here. The last three or four days the 
number of new patients has been greatly increased beyond 
all former proportion, — a hundred since Tuesday, — though 
the mortality has not kept proportionate pace. The whole 
return this day, for four weeks and six days, is 352 cases, 
122 deaths, 145 remaining. Coward as I am in nerve and 
muscle, I have been jDreserved from much more than tJiat 
fear of death in which I live daily, even when the ' end of 
all things here ' seems farthest off". But it is impossible for 
flesh and blood, united to soul and spirit, not to be deeply 
moved, and painfully sensible sometimes of that mortality 
A\hicli may be realized to the hardiest and healthiest of us 
in a moment. But I find this assurance in that book which 
contains the words of etei-nal life, — ' Thou wilt keep him 
in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he 
trusted in thee.' God bless you !" 



288 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Again : 

" I thank you for the amnshig variety of newspapers, 
&c., which you inclosed — all diiferent kinds of mirrors 
reflecting the aspect of the times [in relation to the ques- 
tion of Parliamentary Reform], in as many different ways, 
as to shape, color, expression, &c., according to the caprice 
of those who fashion such things. The real aspect of the 
times grows more and more ominous, to use a heathen 
word ; more and more solemn and charged with warning, 
in Christian parlance. O may we be able to look at it ' as 
seeing Him who is invisible,' and thus be prepared for 
whatever it foretells, or whatever may befal, which indeed 
is more than the wisest observer of ' the signs,' concerning 
which so much is now said, can guess; clearly as ihefore- 
telUng may be ascertained when the issue has arrived. 
' God moves in a mysterious way : ' let us stand still that 
we may see his salvation, or move at his signal, — to use 
your favorite (and approved from experience) figure, — as 
the pillar or the cloud, by day or by night, leads on. . . . 
I have been much occupied in ray parlor alone, with pre- 
paring Dante and Ariosto for Dr. Lardner : the manu- 
scripts of both have been sent to him." 

To the Rev. Samuel Dunn* he writes as follows, under 
date January 31, 1834: 

" I thank you for the gift of your sermon on the Witness 
of the Spirit. It is a very able train of argument in lavor 
of a doctrine which cannot be disproved, though many 
difficulties occur with respect to the interpretation of what 
is the mode m which that witness is certified to the be- 

* Mr. Dunn was at this period one of the "Wesleyan preachers stationed 
in Sheffield. He was expelled the Connexion at the Conference of 1 849, 
along with Messrs. Everett and Griffith ; and afterwards beoame the min- 
ister of an Independent congregation. 



THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT. 289 

liever, or in -which ho receives it, and knows 'the sign 
infallible.' My own mind has been much, and often, and 
painfully exercised concerning that evidence so desirable, 
so necessary for inward peace, and a good hope through 
grace. After all, each must have the witness in himself: 
' God is his own interpreter ' here, as in other secret things, 
' and he will make it plain.' But the experience of one 
man can be of no more avail to another than confirming 
the testimony of all who have in every age professed to 
enjoy it, — that there is such a thing. The Scripture, of 
com-se, decides the question as to the fact ; — I am alluding 
to the evidence of it, whether I, for myself, have obtained 
that mercy or not. It is indeed, and must be in every 
case, like the possession of that ' white stone,' in which ' a 
new name is written, that no man knoweth, saving he who 
receiveth it.' And this stone is given by Him who sends 
the Comforter from the Father to those who are adopted, 
through faith in Him, mto the family of God. My heart's 
desire and prayer for myself is, that as conviction of sin, 
godly sorrow, repentance, and faith, are all most xmques- 
tionably wrought in me by the Holy SiDirit of God, He 
may also not let me rest satisfied with less assurance of 
being pardoned, accej^ted in the Beloved, and sanctified, 
than the Scriptures Avarrant me to expect, and consequently 
render it imperative uj)on me, at the peril of my soul and 
salvation, to ask and to seek, that I may receive and find. 

" I must leave these few imperfect intimations of what 
has been and is to me a somxe of much simitual conflict, 
as ' one of little faith.' * 

* In order to an efBcient belief in Christianity, a man must have been a 
Christian ; and this is the seeming: argumentum in circulo, incident to all 
spiritual truths, to every subject not presentable under the forms of time 
and space, as long as we attempt to master, by the reflex acts of tho un- 



290 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" You who are strong will know how to pity, and per- 
haps to bear wnth my infirmity ; which I might call my 
besetting sin, were it not that so many others might dis- 
pute its claim to that distinction. 

" I have no more doubt of the communion of the ' Holy 
Ghost ' than I have of ' the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,' 
or ' the love of the Father ;' but I do not enjoy it as I 
ought, as I might, and as I pray daily that I may. I hail 
them blessed of the Lord who do so, and who beUeve with 
the heart fully unto righteousness." 

In reply to an invitation to address a missionary meeting 
at Manchester, on Easter week (1834), he indicates some- 
thing of the claims upon his time : 

" Were I ever so well able otherwise to answer your 
call, I have three annual engagements every Easter Monday 
to detain me here, and ' a threefold cord is not soon 
broken.' Five or six and twenty chimney-sweepers' lads 
hold one of the twines ; I know not how many London 
missionaries another ; and, for aught I can tell, millions of 
heathen, among Avhom these labor, the third. In j^lain 
English, I have to attend a public missionary breakfast in 
the morning, and an anniversary meeting in the evening, — 
with the refreshing interlude of a dinner on roast beef and 
plum pudding, Avhich for a quarter of a century a few of us 
have given to the climbing-boys of Sheffield." 

The act for the abolition of slavery in the "West Indies 
received the royal assent in August, 1833. 

The provisions of that act are well known. Children 
under a certain age were made free at once ; while for the 
rest a plan of apprenticeship was adopted, to prepare both 

derstanding, what we can only know by the act of becoming. " Do the 
will of my Father, and ye shall know whether I am of God." — Coleridge's 
Biog. Liter., vol. ii., p. 303. 



EMANCIPATION REJOICINGS. 291 

master and slave for the new issues before them, extending 
to 1840, when slavery was absolutely to expire in the Brit- 
ish possessions. 

"As might be expected," says the English biographer 
of Montgomery, "the 1st of August was a day of triumph 
and of gratitude with the friends of humanity in Great 
Britain, as well as Avith the negroes in the colonies. The 
muse of Montgomery was gladly and effectively invoked 
on the occasion ; and his five spirited " Songs on the Abo- 
htiou of Negro Slavery in the British Colonies " were sung 
not only at different occasions in the metropolis, but 
through the length and breadth of the land. The poet 
himself took personally an active part in the festival pro- 
ceedings at Sheffield. In the forenoon the children belong- 
ing to the Lancasterian schools — nearly a thousand boys 
and girls — assembled to sing two of the hymns and listen 
to an address from him." 

In the evening he presided at a meeting, where about 
five hundred Christian friends, after taking tea together, 
listened to an address even more fervent and animating 
than that which had delighted the children in the morning. 
We may perpetuate in this page the substance of a single 
passage. Holding in his hand a large printed label with 
the words, — " Slavery Abolished, August 1, 1834. Thank 
God ! " — the speaker said, " To God our thanks were espe- 
cially due on this occasion for the glorious event he had 
wrought ; for the abolition of slavery was not attributable 
either to patriots, politicians, or to poets, but to Christians, 
in their character as such ; and especially was it to the suc- 
cessful efforts of the missionaries of rehgion that the 
negroes had been prepared in some degree for these bles- 
sino:s of freedom which could no longer be Avithheld. It 
was," added Montgomery, " chiefly owing to Satan having 



292 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY, 

ensnm-ed himself in liis own toils, that the emancipation of 
the negroes resulted just now — his emissaries objecting 
to the preaching of the Gospel among the colored people 
on various estates, lest they should attain that knowledge 
which their masters despised, and by this means pass them 
by in morals and manners, at length asserted in so many 
words the great truth, that slavery and Christianity could 
not exist together. The very sentiment was the death 
knell of slavery : from the moment that expression was ut- 
tered, it was no longer a question, in heaven or upon earth, 
whether or not slavery should jDcrish. Slavery, so far as 
Great Britain is concerned, has perished ; and from this 
day another slave destined for our colonies shall never 
cross that ocean, from whose mysterious depths, hundreds, 
and probably thousands, who have been throAvn overboard 
during the horrible ' middle passage,' shall rise up at the 
last trump, perhaps crying for mercy upon those who showed 
no mercy to the victims of their cupidity and their cruelty." 

It would have been almost an anomaly twenty years ago, 
for men, pretending to intelligence and piety, and not im- 
plicated in the pecuniary question of slavery, to have seri- 
ously urged its claims as a divine institution, and therefore 
to be pei'petuated and extended. In relation to its moral 
character there was no debate. It is reserved to the 
superior discernment of divines and statesmen at the 
present day, to apprehend its divinities, since common 
sense and common Christianity have pronounced a unan- 
imous verdict that it does not justly belong to the human- 
ities of life. 

A poet might well be inspired, who could sing, as did 
Montgomery in the following stanzas, a consummation so 
honorable to his country, so joyful in its Christian signifi- 
cance : 



EMANCIPATION STANZAS. .. 293 

" Ages, ages have departed, 

Since the first dark vessel bore 
Afric's children, broken-hearted, 
To the Caribbean shore ; 

She, like Eachel, 
Weeping, for they vrere no more. 

" Millions, milUons have been slaughtered 
In the fight and on the deep ; 
Millions, milUons more have watered, 
With such tears as captives weep. 

Fields of travail 
Where their bones till doomsday sleep. 

" Mercy, Mercy, vainly pleading. 

Rent her garments, smote her breast, 
Till a voice, from heaven proceeding, 
Gladdened all the gloomy west : 

' Come, ye weary 1 
Come, and I will give you rest 1' 

" Tidings, tidings of salvation 1 
Britons rose with one accord, 
Purged the plague-spot from our nation, 
Negroes to their rights restored : 

Slaves no longer, 
Pree-men — Free-men of the Lord 1" 



25 



CHAPTER XV. 

INVITATIOX TO VISIT THE UNITED STATES — PROFESSORSHIP OF RHETORIC 
— MRS. HOFLAND — DORA WORDSWOUTH's ALBUM — THE MOUNT — 
SCOTT — LECTURING — LETTER TO MR. BENNETT — DEATH OF MR. 
HODGSON — CHRISTIAN CORRESPONDENT AT LONDON — DEATH OF 
ANNA GALES — LIFE OF SCOTT. 

Ix 1835, Mr. Bennett renewed an invitation to the jioet, 
made a year or two before, to visit the United States, 
offering to defray the expenses of the jonrney. The offer 
was not without its strong attractions. Besides his friends, 
the Galeses, with whom a constant family intercourse had 
subsisted through the sisters, he could presume upon a 
cordial welcome from numerous others, to whom " he was 
unknown and yet known." 

Two eminent Americans, " who being dead, yet sj^eak," 
he had introduced to the English public, having written 
prefaces to the memoirs of Mrs. Huntington, of Boston, 
and the distinguished missionary, David Brainerd, — works 
republished by Collins, of Glasgow. No one could more 
fully appreciate their distinct and peculiar excellences. 
Mai'ked women and blue-stockings, the poet dreaded. He 
loved the gentler and more womanly traits, blooming 
in social sweetness at home, and adorning the ways of the 
household with the tapestry of well-spent hours. Mrs, 
Huntington, " endowed with no splendid talents," and the 



INABILITY TO VISIT AMERICA. 295 

subject of no extraordinary incident, yet possessing some- 
thing more excellent and attainable by all, a piety rising 
into grace, expanding into beauty, and flourishing in use- 
fulness from infancy to youth, and youth to womanhood, 
he presented as a model to her sex. The preface was 
closed by a j^oem, published in his volumes under the 
title Lot of the Hichews. In his essay on Brainerd, 
Montgomery refutes the maxim, " first civilize, then Chris- 
tianize," confronting it with all the success which has at- 
tended missionary enterprise. The divine element, which 
so closely allied the missionary to the spiritual and unseen, 
and poured such a fervent efficacy into all his labors, no 
one could more fully comprehend and love. 

But Avhat answers does he make to the generous pro- 
posals of his friend ? 

"It is so much harder to say 'wo' than 'yes,' " he says, 
yet " no " it was, for he was then engaged in preparing a 
new and uniform edition of his poems " at a moderate 
price, suited to the depreciated value of such commodities 
in the market." " And as his hands were a prisoner to the 
soil, so was his heart, the health of two very near and 
dear to him, Miss Gales and his brother Ignatius, being so 
very precarious that he dared not remove many hours 
from either." 

And thus we, of America, lost the opportunity, this time 
and forever, of welcoming to our shores this gifted poet 
and eminent servant of God. 

A public recognition of his literary worth appears this 
year, in Sir Robert Peel's placing his name, with those of 
Southey, Sharon Turner, Professor Airey, and Mrs. Somer- 
ville, on the pension list of the Literary Fund, to receive 
£'150 a year, as a reward for service rendered to the de- 
partment of letters. 



296 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

The Professorship of Rhetoric in the University of Edin- 
burgh being vacant, Montgomery was urged by his Scot- 
tish friends to apply for it, with their assurance of his 
success. The honor, however, he declined. 

An article upon " Sheffield and its Poets," from the pen 
of Mrs, Holland, thus mirrors him at this time : 

" Montgomery is not only a poet in full possession of 
fame, and commanding the most extensive circle of readers 
that any poet can boast, but he is justly appreciated as a 
good man, of extraordinary capabilities, by his towns- 
men and the country at large. Nature, as if seconding 
the tardy justice of man in redeeming the past, has ren- 
dered him the very youngest man of his years ever beheld ; 
for, had he not been known to the world as a poet thirty 
years, Ave really think he might at this very time pass for 
thirty — such is the slightness of his figure, the elasticity 
of his step, the smoothness of his fair brow, the mobility and 
playfulness of his features when in conversation. I Avas 
xxnfortunate in the period of my visit, it being that of the 
Conference of the Wesleyan Methodists, in consequence of 
which there was a great influx of strangers connected with 
that body ; and as every one either calls on the great j^oet, 
or in some Avay angles for his company, who consider them- 
selves more particularly entitled to the claim of Christian 
brotherhood, no Avonder that at such a time he was half 
killed Avith engagements, and harassed with homage. To 
this Avere added charity bazaars, public meetings on bills in 
Parliament, and petitions from the church, all of which ren- 
dered him the busiest of the busy, transforming the gentle 
poet into the public man — so much the more must my 
heart thank him for the dear and valuable hour which he 
bestoAved on me. . . . With the Avorld, as to its gauds 
and luxuries, he has nothing to do ; but Avith its sorrows, 



COMPLETE AVORKS PUBLISHED. 097 

ignorance, find want, he is continually engaged ; and when 
Sir Robert Peel, to his own immortal honor, marked the 
sense himself and his countrymen entertained of Mont- 
gomery's merit, he only added to his power of benefiting 
his fellow-creatures, for of personal indulgence in expendi- 
ture he has no idea." 

About midsummer, 1836, appeared the Poetical WorJcs 
of James Montgomery^ in three neat volumes. Tliis, the 
first collated and uniform edition of all the poet at this 
time thought worthy of revision and reprint, comjDrised 
not only the matter of seven previous iDublications, but 
also above a score jjieces which had been scattered through 
annuals and periodicals. The matter was also arranged 
under appropriate heads, and the price of the book was 
moderate, so that it had a large sale in comparison with 
that of the entire poems in their sejjarate form. 

One afternoon he found an album uj)on his table, asking 
for his autograph, and something more : no unusual cir- 
cumstance, certainly ; but this little volume possessed more 
than usual interest, for it belonged to Dora Wordsworth, 
and had been sent through a mutual friend to receive a 
contribution from his pen. Here were lines from Words- 
worth, Southey, Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Cole- 
ridge, Campbell, De Quincey, and others. The attemjit at 
a sonnet by Scott was characterized by tremulousness of 
hand, a melancholy tone of expression, and the unfinished 
state of some of the lines — having been written near the 
close of the author's life. Montgomery read it with deep 
feeling, and, closing the book, he said to a friend : " There 
we have almost the best written testimony of one of the 
most active and vigorous minds of the age, made in the 
very prospect of death, and yet there is not the slightest 
allusion to the promises of the GosiJel, or the prospects of 



298 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

the Christian ; but, instead, an equivocal alhision to endur- 
ing the stroke of Fate." 

The bachelor poet invoked the muse, and wrote the 
following : 

" TO WILLIAM WORDSW^OETn, ESQ. 

" Immortal offspring thou "wilt leave behind, 
To track the waves, and travel on the wind ; 
In lettered forms o'er every land to sjDread, 
Where mind expatiates or where fancy's bred ; 
Companions of the fair, the wise, the good. 
Far as their mother-tongue is understood, 
Long as their father-spirit shall inspire. 
Heart-hid emotion, soul-expanding fire, 
And, like the elements of nature, give 
Life to things dead — life's life to things that hve. 
But thou hast offspring nobler far than these. 
Born to survive the heavens, the earth, the seas; 
And she to whom this precious book belongs, 
Shall be yet more immortal than thy songs : 
These, though they bear through every age and clime 
Thy name and praise till the last breath of Time, 
Yet must their written scroll, when he expires. 
Drop from his hand into the final fires. 
Oh ! then, may she, like morning from the womb 
Of darkness, issuing from her long night-tomb. 
Behold the terror with rejoicing eyes. 
Caught up to meet her Saviour in the skies. 
And with his saints, a glorious company, 
Hold round 4he throne eternal jubilee I 

" This for thy daughter, Wordsworth, is my prayer : 
Next for thyself — mayst thou that mercy share, 
Nor one that either loves be wanting there 1 

"J. M. 

"Tlic Mount, November 3, 1S3G." 



LETTER FROM WORDSWORTH. 299 

This courtesy Avas promptly and gracefully acknowledged 
by the bard of Ambleside in the following terms : 

"My Deak Feiend, 

" Yesterday were received at Rydal Mount, through 
the kindness of Mr. Yonnge, your volumes; and thehttle 
book belonging to my daughter, which you have been so 
good as to enrich with a most valuable contribution. For 
these tokens of your regard, and for the accompanying 
letter, acce2:)t our joint thanks. I can assure you with 
truth, that from the time I first read your JVcifiderer of 
/Switzerland, with the little pieces annexed, I have felt a 
lively interest in your destiny as a poet ; and though much 
out of the way of new books, I have become acquainted 
with your Avorks, and with increasing pleasure, as they suc- 
cessively appeared. It might be presumptuous in me were 
I to attempt to define what I hope belongs to us in com- 
mon ; but I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of express- 
ing a firm behef that neither morality nor religion can 
have sufiered from our writings ; and with respect to 
yours, I know that both have been greatly benefited by 
them. Without convictions of this kind, all the rest must 
in the latter days of an author's life appear to him worse 
than vanity. My publisher has been directed to forward 
to you (I suppose it will be done through Messrs. Long- 
man) the first volume of my new edition, and the others 
as they successively appear. As the book could not be con- 
veniently sent to you through my hands, I have ven- 
tured to write a few fines upon a slip of paper to be 
attached to it, which I trust will give you a pleasure akin 
to what I received from the lines written by your own 
hand on the fly-leaf of your first volume. With earnest 
wishes that time may deal gently with you as life declines, 



300 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

and that holies may brighten and flxith grow firmer as you 
draw nearer the end of your earthly course, 

" I remain, my dear sir, faithfully yours, 

"W. WOEDSAVORTII. 

" Pray excuse my employment of an amanuensis ; my 
eyes require that help which Mrs. Wordsworth is ever 
ready to give. 

" James Montgomery, Esq., The Mount, Sheffield." 

Hartshead, so commodious and attractive to the youth- 
ful adventurer forty-three years before, has grown old and 
dingy. Comfort, elegance, and fashion have left it to the 
encroachments of smoke and time, and gone to cleaner por- 
tions of the city. Thither Montgomery, with his adopted 
sisters, removes, and makes a new home at The Mount, a 
block of newly erected houses, beautifully situated on a 
swell of land skirting the south side of the city. 

There we now find him, at sixty-five, in the zenith of his 
reputation, surrounded by comfort and friends, with health 
and motive for sufiicient exertion to keej) his heart young 
and his head clear, a ripe old English gentleman. 

Many who began life Avith him have fallen by the way. 

Coleridge's glorious sun had set in clouds. 

Scott, after di'inking deeper draughts from the goblet of 
fame than man ever drank before, hke the master of a 
sumptuous feast, awoke to the desolate forlornness of the 
next morning, — to find himself a bankrupt, — and a bank- 
rupt he died, in everything but his cheery temper and un- 
dying fame. 

Southey is nearing those sorrows which finally crushed 
him. 

Montgomery, with a constitution naturally delicate, is 



LABORING IN HOPE. 301 

indeed capable of doing a greater amount of work than 
ever. Manifold are his labors ; not are the quiet, graver 
pursuits more suited to the sober and conservative period 
of age ; rather the alert activities of a man profoundly in- 
terested in all the onward movements of the time. 

Many a bright vision of reform has perished ; confidence 
in men and measures has received many a blow ; the world 
more slowly apprehends the right, and more tardily still is 
disposed to follow it, than he ever supposed ; the heats of 
passion and the jealousy of party blacken what is good, 
brighten what is bad : good men are often allied to bad 
measures, and good measures are often successful through 
bad men. Yet for all this, Montgomery does not wilfully 
or impatiently cast himself on a lower platform of princi- 
ples or policy : nor is he willing to abandon Avhat cannot 
be easily accomplished ; he believes in men, and labors for 
their improvement. He believes in God, and trusts the 
righteousness of his providence. The brooding, distrust- 
ful, self-accusing spirit of earlier days has given place to a 
calm, hopeful, joyous trust in God : 

" With only such degree of sadness left 
As may support longings of pure desire ; 
And strengthen love, rejoicing secretly 
In the sublime attractions of the grave." 

And so, like one 

" Accustomed to desires that feed 

On fruitage gathered from the Tree of Life ; 
To hopes on knowledge and experience built ; — 
In whom persuasion and belief 
Had ripened into faith," 

a middle life of usefulness and enjoyment is passing to a 

tranquil and devout old age. 
2G 



302 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Amid the hurry and confusion of moving, he was under 
the necessity of preparing a course of Lectures upon the 
British Poets, promised to Manchester and Leeds, concern- 
ing whose recej^tion he writes to a friend : 

"At Manchester and in Leeds, by the testimonies of the 
councils of the Listitutions in both places, my lectures have 
been so well received as to have commanded v;nusually 
large audiences; indeed, in the latter town, they could 
hardly have been larger on the last three evenings. I may 
say, myself, that the audiences have been of the highest 
respectability, and I have been heard by all with a measure 
of favor and indulgence which it becomes mo to attribute 
rather to their liberality than to the merit of my j^apers. 
It is, however, a circumstance not a little gratifying under 
the present discouragement of elegant literature, and the 
absolute depression of poetry, to find that persons actively 
engaged in the jjursuits oi prosperous commerce, are (so 
many of them at least) willing to spare an hour, now and 
then, from profit and loss, for the i:)leasure and improve- 
ment which may be derived (under better teaching than 
mine) from lessons on 'the divinest of human arts,' as I 
have presumed to call that which I profess to expound, — 
and in my humble way to practise, so as, if possible, in- 
nocently to entertain my hearers. Forgive this egotism, 
which if anywhere in place is surely so in a letter." 

As a public speaker, we find his engagements are numer- 
ous. He lectures frequently before the Literary Institu- 
tions of some of the principal cities in the kingdom, with very 
considerable pecuniary profit ; and is a favorite pleader in 
behalf of Benevolent Institutions of the Church, for whose 
growth and success he had felt almost a father's care. 

The following letter, dated January 27, 1837, was ad- 
dressed to Geors:e Bennett : 



LETTER TO GEORGE RENNETT. 303 

"My Dear Friend, 

" These lines must be few, but they bear the heaviest 
burden with which I have ever had to charge a letter to 
you. Before I name the occasron, you will already have 
anticipated it. This day at noon our endeared and ines- 
timable friend Rowland Hodgson entered into the joy of 
his Lord. After such a life of suiFering, what must the 
first moment be to the redeemed spirit emancipated from 
that house of bondage, the perishing body, and brought 
indeed into the glorious liberty of the children of God, in 
the very kingdom of his Father and the personal presence 
of that Saviour whom while unseen he loved, and in whom, 
now that he does see Him eye to eye, he rejoices and shall 
for ever rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory! 
To us who are still strangers and pilgrims on earth, yet, I 
humbly hope, inquiring our way to Zion, with our faces 
thitherward and our hearts already there, Avhere our treas- 
ure is — or we are utterly, hopelessly, and everlastingly 
poor — the world, as I sung ten years ago, in a poem com- 
menced in mind in our late friend's carriage while we were 
travelling together, the world to me ' grows darker, lone- 
lier, and more silent, as I descend into the vale of years.' 
One light which has long cheered, and I may say accom- 
panied, me through one third of my way of life, is now 
gone out — no, no, not out, it has passed 07i before through 
the shadow of death into the splendor of eternity : but I 
shall miss it ; and O ! how many more whom its mild 
beams were wont to bless will miss it too ! But the Lord 
liveth — He gave and He has taken away — blessed be his 
name ! To none but Him would we have surrendered it, 
and submitted to the bereavement. But He who doeth all 
things well, cannot have done otherwise in respect to us on 
this occasion ; while the departed, whom we must lament 



304 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

on our own account as frail human creatures, how has he 
ah-eady learnt that all things while he was in the body did^ 
moment by moment, without intermission, work together 
for his good ! and why ? — ah ! there is the point that con- 
cerns us as survivors, if we would secure the same blessed- 
ness for ourselves — because he loved God. So may xoe, and 
so may the Lord help us to do ! I am too much bewildered 
•with the effect of this stroke, which, though I have been 
expecting it from day to day for three Aveeks past, yet 
stunned my ficulties as though it were sudden. Death 
always is sudden when it comes at last ; for, how long or 
how much soever foreseen and apprehended, the recdity of 
it is as different from the anticipation as life and death are 
themselves distinct. Forgive, therefore, the little coher- 
ence of the foregoing remarks, which are but the imperfect 
ex25ression of feelings and sentiments, themselves but mo- 
mentary fragments crowding and flitting away, w^iile the 
mind is scarcely more than passively conscious, and the 
heart hardly yet sensible of the actual distress that for a 
long time — if time be yet allowed to me much longer 
— must afilict it when the loss which I have sustained 
comes to be experienced : at j^resent it is but known as a 
fact — as that Avhich has occurred and never can be re- 
versed. I must give over. I did not intend to touch this 
page, but as I am forced upon it, I wiU just add that our 
friends at Park Grange within these two days have been 
visited with the prevailing influenza. Thousands of fam- 
ilies here are inflicted by it, so far as I can learn ; but, on 
the whole, the symptoms appear to be milder than they 
have manifested themselves in your great city. None of 
our connexions, I believe, have been severely handled by 
it. We have escaped in this house hitherto. 

" I am truly, your affectionate friend, 

" J. MOXTGOMEKY." 



THE "CHRISTIAN COKRE S TO NDEN T," 395 

Mr. Bennett has written upon this letter, " R. Hodgson is 
gone to his Lord. Oh ! for grace to follow him, as he fol- 
lowed our common Lord." 

At the beginning of February appeared the " Christian 
Correspondent : Letters, Private and Coniidential, addressed 
to Relatives and others, by pious Persons of both Sexes, 
eminent for their Talents, or peculiar Circumstances in 
Life, exemplifying the Fruits of Holy Living, and the Bless- 
edness of Holy Dying." These letters, forming three 
volumes, were introduced by a " Preliminary Essay " from 
the pen of Montgomery — at whose suggestion, indeed, 
the work itself was undertaken by the publishers, "to one of 
whom he had casually remarked," Mr. Holland goes on to 
tell us, "that he had often met with letters by people, great 
and good in their day, which, though never intended for 
any eyes but those of their respective correspondents, were, 
nevertheless, often the more interesting and precious on 
that very account ; and especially were they worthy of 
preservation, as introducing us into the i:)rivacy of distin- 
guished individuals, who, on general occasions, acted, 
spoke, wi'ote, and even thought as in the sight and audi- 
ence of their contemporaries, and of posterity; conse- 
quently, in some measure, at least, vmder restraint. In the 
freedom of epistolary intercourse, they poured into the faith- 
ful ear of friends and kindred their joys and their sorrows ; 
and showed themselves, as they appeared in their families 
and amidst society at large, men of like joassions with our- 
selves, engaged in the business, the cares, and the charities 
of ordinary life ; at the same time, by glimpses and allu- 
sions, unconsciously revealing the inmost secrets of their 
hearts ; and this, whether the topics are religious or other- 
wise — so that at the distance of centuries they may be 

known, not only as they desired to be seen, or even as they 
26* 



306 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

were seen by their cvery-day and incurious acquaintance, 
but as they actually were in themselves and to themselves. 
It was moreover truly intimated at the same time, that the 
familiar letters of illustrious individuals of bygone times, 
who may be known otherwise only by the imperfect re- 
cords of history — the overcharged portraits drawn of 
them by biographers, or (if authors) perhaps by their own 
elaborate literary performances, have an interest exceed- 
ingly attractive, and afford intelligence concerning the 
writers, which is not only gratifying to innocent curiosity, 
but deUghtfully and practically instructive to those who 
love to study human nature in its elements and eccentrici- 
ties — to trace its general correspondence and its individual 
diversities. It is thus that one mind is compared with an- 
other mind as contemplated under similar asj^ects ; while 
each is brought to the test of our own reason, so far as self- 
knowledge, experience, and observation enable us to judge 
with candor and impartiality." 

We believe that Montgomery's colleague in this under- 
taking, so far as the selection of the larger portion of the 
matter, and the arrangement of the Avhole is concerned, 
was Mr. Henry Kogcrs, whose contributions to the " Edin- 
burgh Review " have been separately printed, and who has 
gained deserved popularity from his " Eclipse of Faith." 
The letters are selected with discrimmation and taste ; and 
were, on the whoje, satisfactory to the originator of the 
work. He was, at first, inclined to doubt the advantage 
of distributing them under certain general heads with re- 
ference to subject^ instead of arranging them simply accord- 
ing to their dates ; but on reconsidering the matter, he ap- 
peared to coincide Avith the views of the editor in favor of 
a classification. The "Preliminary Essay" displays in a 
considerable degree that delicate perception of tlie latent 



THE "PRELIMINARY ESSAY." 307 

beauties of the materials before him, and that peculiar 
felicity in pointing them out, which had characterised his 
efforts in previous compositions of a like nature. 

The leading idea, which apj^ears to have been present to 
the mind of the editor, was, that — 

"In confidential epistolary correspondence, people are 
more really themselves than in any other way of exercising 
then- faculties in reference to their fellow-creatures; and 
these memorials," he adds, " have the advantage, not only 
of being 

' "Warm from the heart, and faithful to its fires,' 

but they are positive acts, not mere records ; and the re- 
vealing of the writers in their real characters, though, per- 
haps, as imperceptible, is yet as gradual and manifest, at 
comparative intervals, as any of the operations of nature 
throughout the animal or vegetable kingdoms, in the 
growth of what is palpable, and the develoj)ment of what 
is concealed." . , . . " Whatever a man says of himself 
is genuine ; Avhether it be true or false, it is equally his 
own. Even in hypocrisy he is no hypocrite, for deceit is 
natural ; if he assumes a virtue which he has not, he ex- 
poses a vice which he has ; if he pretends to talents which 
he does not possess, he disproves his claim by the inability 
with which he asserts it. One part of his character he 
may conceal, but the very act of concealment betrays 
another ; if he cover his breast with both his hands, he 
may be showing us that they are not clean ; if he turns 
away his head to hide his face, perhaps he is discovering 
to us his baldness behind. Let him represent himself as he 
will, we shall see him more clearly as he is than any other 
man could have represented him." 

It is the opinion of Thomas De Quincey (the " English 



308 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Opium Eater ") that " amongst all the celebrated letter- 
writers of past or present times, a large overbalance hap- 
pens to have been men ;" at the same time he admits that, 
"more frequently women write from their hearts — and 
this very cause operates to make female letters good." 

Montgomery appears to have entertained a similar opin- 
ion, for towards the close of a section in reply to the ques- 
tion, " why are the letters of women, for the most part, 
more frank and agreeable than those of men ? " he says, 
"where they give their confidence at all, they give it 
heai'tily," 

In May, 1837, we follow him to London, and again find 
him at the Royal Institution lecturing upon the Principal 
British Poets. 

The six lectures comprise the following subjects : — Lec- 
ture 1. Introduction. — A View of the Present State of 
Poetry and General Literature in this Country. Lecture 2. 
Strictures on the earher British Poets from the Reign of 
Edward III., including Langlande, Chaucer, Gower, &c. 
Lecture 3. British Poets of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and 
Seventeenth Centuries, including Skelton, Surrey, Spenser, 
Shakespeare, Donne, &c. Lecture 4. British Poets of the 
Seventeenth Century continued, including CoAvley, Butler, 
Milton, Dryden, Prior, Addison, &c. Lecture 5. British 
Poets of the Eighteenth Century, including Parnell, Pope, 
Thomson, Young, Churchill, Akenside, &c. Lecture 6. 
British Poetesses. — British Poets of the Eighteenth and 
Nineteenth Centuries, including Burns, Cowper, Crabbe, 
Sir Walter Scott, Lord Bp*on, and Coleridge, with brief 
references to some living Poets, — "Wordsworth, Southey, 
Rogers, Campbell, Moore, &c. 

" The proprietor of the ' Metropolitan Magazine,' " says 
his English biographer, " was anxious to have purchased 



LECTURES ON BKITISH TOETS. 309 

tire MS, of the lectures for publication in that periodical, 
distributing the matter over the ensuing twelvemonths' 
numbers. The remuneration proposed was so liberal that 
the author would at once have closed with the offer, had 
he not experienced some misgivings, in the first place, as 
to whether they were really worth the sum offered ; and, 
in the next jjlace, whether he ought, considering what was 
due to his own reputation, to give them to the public, even 
through such a medium, without first subjecting them to a 
more leisurely and rigid revision than the occasion afforded 
him a chance of bestowing. A part of the first lecture he 
did, indeed, consent thus to disjjose of. We believe he re- 
ceived fifty guineas for the delivery of the lectures before 
the Royal Institution. His sj^are time during this visit to 
the metropolis was, for the most part, divided between 
the claims of his relatives at Woolwich, and those of his 
old friend George Bennett, Esq., at Hackney. It was 
chiefly in consequence of the latter association that he 
was induced to take a part as a speaker at the annual 
meeting of the London Missionary Society, the only bene- 
volent institution (with a smgle excej^tion, j^erhaps) whose 
anniversary his over-cautious timidity did not prevent him 
from attending." 

" The last five days," he writes to Mr. Holland, " have 
advanced the season more than the sun had done in all 
his journey through the first sign of the year ; renewing 
its youth as it was wont to do in former ages, but as of 
late it has rarely done till much later. With me, the only 
intimation of youth to he renewed is the decay of nature. 
I have, indeed, no ccmse, to complain, except a disposition 
to complain, — the worst of all possible causes, where mur- 
muring is ingratitude, and less than the most fervent gra- 
titude is imjnety. My daily prayer is to have — next to 



310 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

' a broken heart and a conti'ite spirit ' — a thoughtful heart, 
and a meek and quiet spirit, resigned wholly to his will, 
who alone knows what is good for me, and who alone can 
do any good to me. 

" I have been called upon to attend two private meetings 
for our Moravian missions, and a public one for another 
beautiful charity — for the rehef of widows in the first 
month of their affliction and bereavement — during the 
past week. Several others have been in my way, but I 
have made it in my way to pass by on the other side. In- 
deed, I must avoid as many occasions of this kind as pos- 
sible — both flesh and spirit fail me, and I never dare 
engage in such services now, except when I dare not 
desert, though a pressed man. To-day is the great Wes- 
leyan Annual [Missionary] Meeting at Exeter Hall ; and 
I have willfully kept out of sight of my friends in that 
Connexion, that they might not, out of courtesy, ask me 
to take part at the meetings to come. 

" Ever since you left us I have been involved, beyond 
the average number, with meetings, anniversaries, and com- 
mittees connected with such and other public engagements, 
so that I have had little time and less spirit to do or get 
any good, by choice, in any other way; and if I have 
failed either to get or do on these occasions, my days and 
weeks have been wofully misspent. Perhaps, however, it 
is well for me to be thus exercised ; it would be, I know, 
if I rightly improved these — what shall I call them ? — 
providential accidents of my situation in life, — a long- 
standing among my townsi^eople here, and a certain char- 
acter which has grown upon me rather than grown out 
of me, because I am one of ' those who appear righteous 
before men ; ' but ' God knowcth my heart? O, how hum- 
bling ought these awful Avords of our Saviour to be to me ! 



DEATH OF ANNA GALES. 311 

and how onglit I to fear and tremble, yea, even when I 
rejoice, to tremble, and lie in the dust at his feet, lest, 
after all, his last word to me should be ' depart !'...! 
thank you for your over-sea stanzas on American freedom 
and American slaveholding. Mr. George Thompson is 
here now, incensing us on the latter subject, as well as 
upon the atrocious violations of faith on the part of our 
own colonists, in too many instances, respecting that new 
and anomalous form of slavery — slavery hideous in all 
its shapes, and most hideous in disguise — under the legal 
fiction of apprenticeship." 

Summer and autumn glide on with noiseless flow, with 
little for our pen to record, in its fragmentary snatches of 
human life ; yet no blanks are they in the Book of Re- 
membrance. 

Winter brings more than weather chills to the Mount : 
Death follows hard on the new year ; Anna Gales sickens 
and dies. 

"January 18, 1S38. 

" We are one less at the Mount," writes Montgomery to 
Mr. Holland. " We are, however, not as those who sor- 
sow without hope. I must not trust my heart to my hand, 
or I know not whither it might be carried at this time. 
Sarah [Gales] is pretty well; but — as it could not, it 
ought not to be otherwise — deeply distressed. Dear 
Anna [Gales] departed yesterday morning soon after four 
o'clock. With her yet in body amongst us we seem to be 
living between the two worlds, in each of which she has 
now a portion. Ours is yet in this ; but all that we have 
to do, including the fulfillment of every duty to God and 
our neighbor, under every change of circumstances, is to 
prepare for our departure — that, when called at any mo- 



312 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

ment, we may arise and go hence, for this is not our rest ; 
but there remaineth a rest for the people of God. Among 
these may we — you — all, aU we love, be found here, and 
then, there and forever, we shall be with the Lord." 

To George Bennett he writes again, January 23, 1838 : 
" Yesterday I followed to her last home all that was left 
of my beloved companion, my sister in soul, though alien by 
blood, when her spirit returned to God who gave it, and 
broke the threefold cord that had bound herself, her sister, 
and me in domestic affection for more than five and forty 
years. We laid her to rest in the church-yard of Ecking- 
ton, her native village, where her kindred of three genera- 
tions have been progressively gathered to their unrecorded 
fathers, who lived before them in the same neighborhood. 
. . . She rests in peace, I humbly trust, in the presence 
of her Redeemer. For years past her simple ingenuous 
piety and sincere devotion, according to the knowledge of 
divine things which slie had received, and which she 
embraced, I verily believe, according to the convictions 
wrought by the Spirit of God upon her heart and mind — 
these have been to me a source of hope for her through 
life, and are still the ground of faith in the j^owcr of the 
Gospel as the power of God to her, that she is now one 
of the redeemed before the throne. This one subject, 
which has in other respects been predominant in my 
thoughts while the process of mortality was going forward 
and under my very eyes for the last month, has occupied 
all my paper ; and less I found not means to say, though I 
seem to have said so little, that you -will very imperfectly 
comprehend through what a course of sorrows and conso- 
lations, wonderfully and blessedly mingled in the same 
cup, her dear sister and I have been lately led. All, all I 



LOCKHAET'S LIFE OF SCOTT. 313 

must conclude is well, because I cannot find a Scripture 
that ■will — understood in its plainest meaning — allow me 
to doubt that she is as far beyond suflering and death as 
pure spirit can be in heaven. Sarah joins me in kindest 
regards, and good "wishes for your health and happiness 
through many new years to come — if it be the Lord's will ; 
and if not, for something better still — soul-health and 
happmess to all eternity." 

" You mention Lockhart's ' Life of Walter Scott,' " says 
Montgomery : " few books, indeed, have I ever read which 
gave me so much of that gratification which, as an adven- 
turer in literature myself, I eagerly seek in the biography 
of any of the master-minds of their age, and especially of 
our own country. But I cannot express — and if I could I 
would not — the strange misgivings that haunted me 
through every stage of his marvellous fortune — marvel- 
lous in its prosperity, and more marvellous in its reverse ; 
the chances of both extremes meeting in one person being 
millions of millions of times more beyond probability than 
was the unexampled success which he attained — though 
that was itself beyond all calculation ; no other in any age 
or country having reaped such golden harvests from the 
mere market value of the commodities which he brought 
out for sale, as this mighty man of the North ; — I say I 
was haunted with a dreary misgiving concerning the result 
of his labors to himself, feeUng that all could not be right 
within, while there is much of what is wrong in the most 
popular of his productions. I am not his judge, therefore 
I condemn him not, but lament that his ten talents were 
not wholly so employed that his master could in reference 
to all of them, say, '^'Well done, good and faithful servant ! ' 
What a different world would it be if we all, from ten 

talents down to the tenth of one talent, could say, in the 
27 



314 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

day of our account, 'Lord, that which thou gavest I have 
occupied ; and there is thine own with usury ! ' Would 
not such a consummation — such a consecration of God's 
gifts to God's glory — go far towards the fulhllment of 
millennial prophecies and Paradise Restored ?" 

March 8. He was reading the sixth volume of the "Life 
of Scott. " It really," said he, " makes one almost un- 
Avilling to die, when one sees how the very secret thoughts 
of an individual, if he happened to leave any private re- 
cord of them, are exposed to public gaze and scrutiny 
after the writer's death, I believe I never wrote a line 
of a diary in my life. Scott, to and through his heart's 
core, was, with all his genius, a thoroughly worldly-mhided 
man : ho does, indeed, sometimes mention the Bible Avith 
respect in a general way ; but there can be no doubt that 
he hated what we are accustomed to call — and very pro- 
perly call — evangelical religion. He has some flippant, 
not to say irreverent remarks, on the opinion that good 
people make the bliss of heaven to consist chiefly in sing- 
ing ; an employment which, it seems, would not be wel- 
come to Jiim. The fact is, holy men, even the simplest of 
them, are very rarely guilty of excess in the notion thus 
attributed to them : indeed, why should they be ? since 
nearly all that the Scriptures authorise us to conclude of 
the state and jilace of the happy departed, comes within 
the meaning of four Avords — light, music, society, and, 
especially, rest ; and these, in some of their modifications, 
will be found to constitute nearly the entire subject of the 
' Paradiso ' of Dante," 

To George Bennett, under date of March 17, 1838 : 
" . . . I have once more to acknowledge the fresh 
obligation which you offer to lay upon me, and to none liv- 
mg am I more willmg to be under an obUgation than to 



LETTER TO MR. BENNETT. 315 

yourself; but without assigning one of the ninety-nine 
reasons which cut ofi" the probability, not to say possibility, 
of visiting Hackney this year (and in the whole calendar of 
time there is no year but this, since the past have been, and 
the future are not), I can only accept the invitation in my 
heart, and hope to enjoy the pleasure of it in the sjurit, 
should I be sj^ared to see the swalloAvs and hear the cuckoo 
again. I am under an engagement to visit Bristol for a 
few days in May on a missionary anniversary, and again in 
October, for a fortnight, to deliver my lectures there on 
the ' British Poets.' My spirits have been and continue 
too much depressed by personal troubles, as well as by late 
domestic afflictions, to allow me to look beyond the mor- 
row (with the exceptions afore-mentioned) ; and daily 
mercies alone enable me to go softly on my way of life, as 
one with whom the end of all things is at hand, and who 
has needed to be sober and watchful unto prayer, lest, 
after all the long-suffering and lovmg-kindness of God my 
Saviour towards me, I be at last a castaway. At Hull 
several friends (especially Mr. James Bowden and his 
family connections) mquired very kindly after you. I am 
obliged by your extract from Lesche's ' Polar Discoveries,' 
because it shows how kindly attentive you are to my credit 
as an author. I have not seen the publication, but I am 
sufficiently acquainted both with the northern histories and 
traditions respecting East Greenland to know that it is dif 
ficult to distinguish fact from fable in them, and to make 
both bend to my purpose as a rhymer. Cottle's ' Recollec- 
tions of Coleridge ' I read with peculiar interest, having 
had personal acquaintance with the biographer, and no 
ordinary feeling of curiosity to learn more of the actual 
character of the most mysterious of the master spirits of 
our age, as influencing its literature. Lockhart's ' Memoirs 



316 LIFE OF MONTGOMElfY. 

of "Walter Scott ' at present absorb my whole soul in read- 
ing them volume by volume. His history is more intensely 
attractive to my mind, and in itself even more marvellous, 
than any of his fictions either in verse or prose." 



CHAPTEPv XVI. 

VICTORIA ON TIIK BRITISH THRONE — REJOICINGS AT SHEFFIELD — APPEAL 
FOR THE POOR — LETTER TO A " FAR WEST " COLLEGE — AT BRISTOL — 
LECTURING TOUR — CENTENARY OF METHODISM — REV. WILLIAM JAY'S 
JUBILEE — DEATH OF IGNATIUS MONTGOMERY. 

A YOUTHFUL sovereign ascended the British throne in 
1838, a maiden queen, before whom all hearts in the realm 
bowed in loyal homage. Never were coronation festivities 
celebrated with more hearty and universal cordiality. Pro- 
cessions, illuminations, dinners, suppers, balls, soirees, ani- 
mated old England, -Rath less of the bacchanalian jollity of 
the olden time, and more of the rational, genuine enjoy- 
ment, becoming a higher tone of national intelligence and 
morality. 

Sheffield was not behind its sister cities in the expres- 
sions of the day. Beside the salutes and decorations which 
heralded and adorned the occasion, a public soiree was held 
at Cutler's Hall, at which Montgomery was invited to con- 
tribute by his presence and his pen. On the afternoon of 
the 28th of June, four hundred gentlemen and ladies of 
every shade of religious opinion sat down to table, at 
which the venerable poet presided, with Miss Sarah Gales 
on one side, and a beautiful niece on the other. 

Tea being over, he arose and addressed the meeting in a 

tone of remark befitting a gallant. Christian gentleman : 
27 * 



318 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

"Her Majesty," he said, in closing, "the first of a line of 
sovereigns since a maiden Queen filled the throne, has suc- 
ceeded to an empire on the face of which, between the ris- 
ing and setting sun, there exists not one slave among the 
hundred and twenty millions of her subjects ; for whatever 
tyranny may be exercised under the name of apprentice- 
ship in the West Indies, every man, woman, and child in 
those islands, by law as well as by equity, is free. . . . 
My heart's desire and prayer is that the reign of Victoria 
may be rendered more illustrious than that of any one of 
her predecessors in their day, by being a reign of mercy, a 
reign of peace ; so that wherever the ensigns of her author- 
ity appear, they may be the pledges of her benignity, not 
to her subjects alone, but to all kindreds and nations with 
whom she is in concord." 

In the course of the evening, the spirited ode — " The 
Sceptre in a Maiden Hand," was sung by the choir to the 
air of " Rule Britannia," which was received with raptur- 
ous applause. 

While these festivities were enlivening the higher, the 
poet was not unmindful of humbler circles. Accordingly 
he wrote and circulated the following aj)peal : 

" ' Gather up the fragments that remain^ that nothing 
may he lost? 

" So said our Saviour after he had fed five thousand men 
in the wilderness with five barley loaves and two small 
fishes, and so will all his followers do whenever they have 
opportunity. Tens of thousands of our townspeople will 
be feasted by their friends, their employers, or from their 
own abundance, on the coronation day of our most gra- 



APPEAL FOR THE POOR. 319 

cious sovereign Victoria. Let it then be indeed ' a good 
day,' ' a day of feasting and joy, and of sending portions to 
one another, and gifts to the poor? (Esther, ix. 17-20). 
Among the latter, let us not forget the poorest of the poor^ 
— the old, infirm, and desolate of that sex to which our young 
and lovely Queen belongs ; and while we ' eat the fat and 
drink the sweet,' let us ' send portions unto them for whom 
nothing is prepared.' (ISTehemiah, viii. 9.) The visitors of 
the Aged Female Society purpose on the day after the cor- 
onation (Friday, the 29tli instant) to mvite the venerable 
objects of this benevolent institution to take tea with them 
(by favor of the master cutler) at the Cutler's Hall ; that 
these — the youngest of whom is more than thrice, and the 
greater number four times the age of her Majesty — may 
have a day of humble feasting and as hearty gladness as 
the youngest and strongest of those on whom Providence 
has bestowed gifts more abounding. Let such then but 
contribute the value of the crumbs that fall from their well- 
sjiread tables on that day of universal hospitality, and their 
mites cast into the treasury will be sufficient to furnish ' the 
widow and her who has none to help her,' with an even- 
ing's entertainment which will be remembered with grati- 
tude to the last evening of her long and suffering life. The 
funds of the charity are so limited, that less than fourpence 
per week is all that can be afforded, on the average, to 
each of its poor objects. It cannot, however, be doubted, 
that the compassionate liberality of its well-wishers will en- 
able the ladies of the committee to make three hundred old 
hearts happy, at a season when millions of all ages and con- 
ditions throughout the British Empire will be rejoicing to- 
gether." 

This appeal was not in vain. About twenty pounds were 
collected, and a bouncing bottle of Jamaica rum, which had 



320 LIFE or MONTGOMERY. 

not come into tlie poet's account. Its seeming vmavaUabil- 
ity sorely puzzled him ; it Avas finally exchanged for wine, 
and Montgomery and his friends, the next day, with three 
hundred poor, elderly women, drank the health of their 
fair, young Queen. 

" Among the myriads of feastings throughout the land," 
he said, "I doubt whether there was one at which more 
genuine and hearty dehght was felt than at the tea-drinking 
which we gave to the Aged Female Society." 

" We've all been queens to-day !" said one poor woman 
in the joy of her heart. 

The middle of this year, Montgomery received a diploma 
of complimentary membership from a society in the United 
States' "far West." 

" Some tune since," replies the poet, " I Avas favored 
with a communication from you in behalf of the So- 
ciety of College, in the ' far West.' The latter phrase, 

which occurs at the beginning of your letter, has more 
poetry in it than all the four quartoes besides. Onward ! 
onward! onward! is your one text, and the history of all 
generations to come will be its interminable commentary. 
Nothing — amidst all the labors and enterprises of your 
countrymen, consisting of as many tongues — is of more 
value and importance, nor Avill any be more permanently 
beneficial and influential, than those in which you and your 
associates are so honorably engaged. For just in propor- 
tion as learning — from the highest, the 'knowledge of the 
Holy Scriptures, which are able to make wise unto salva- 
tion, through faith in Jesus Christ,' through all the grada- 
tions' of science and literature, to the humblest rudiments 
of instruction in the log-hut or the forest sanctuaiy — just 
in proportion as learning, thus comprehensively understood, 



LETTER TO A "FAR WEST" COLLEGE. 321 

is successfully promulgated, Avill the glory, the happmess, 
and the security of your nation and her institutions be con- 
firmed, promoted, and perpetuated. The literature of both 
countries is yours, and that which is of native growth with 
you will pay ample mterest for the capital stock of our 
rearing, through eight centuries, which you have borrowed 
from us — that is, if you do justice to yourselves, and eman- 
cii^ate your literature as you have emancipated your terri- 
tory from our yoke, however light, and even honorable to 
bear, that may be. Our standards of excellence will ever 
be yours, as well as ours ; and the most that either of us 
can do will be to rival them ; but we must each do this in 
our own w^ay : your literature, therefore, must be no longer 
colonial^ but national, as all else in your polity is. You 
have mdeed some noble examples, both in prose and rhyme 
(but more especially in the former), of indigenous produc- 
tion, which must at once bo recognized as American in 
style, subject, and spirit, yet pure in the dialect of our 
best models of the last fifty years. The diffusion of our 
common language — not only over North America, but 
so\ATi, as the seeds of it are, in every quarter of the globe 
as formerly divided, and throughout Australia and Poly- 
nesia — is an animating consideration to those who seek 
through literature to obtain ' an honest fame or none.' It 
has truly been one of the sweetest rewards of the sacrifices 
which I have made to be enrolled among poets, — how 
brief soever my immortality among men maybe, — to learn 
from many pens and voices of the West, and the 'far 
West,' that I have not labored in vain, though I chose 
neither a popular nor a fashionable, nor even a classical 
walk of composition in which to try my powers. The re- 
cognition of my humble claims by the youth of Col- 
lege has been one more gratifying seal of my comparative 



322 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

success. So far as I have striven lawfully for distinction, 
may each of your candidates follow my steps, but with 
greater and happier results to himself and mankind ! " 

On the 5th of October Montgomery left Sheffield for 
Bristol, to dehver, before the members of the Philosophical 
Society in that city, his course of six lectures on the Brit- 
ish Poets, which were received with a degree of eclat as 
little expected by the poet himself as it seems to have 
been anticii^ated by the gentlemen who engaged him. In 
one of the local journals he was greeted with an address in 
rhyme, which ended with these lines : 

" Thrice welcome to our city, bard beloved ! 
Patriot and Christian, honored and approved I 
Thou know'st her worth — hast sung her Reynolds' praise, 
In warm and generous, unforgotten lays ; 
And, as some mother whose beloved son 
Hath from a stranger gracious honors won, 
Looks she on thee ; but here that name must end, — 
No stranger now, but ever dear — a friend I" 

In the first week of December he went to Birmingham, 
and commenced the dehvery of the same course, before 
" one of the largest and most respectable audiences ever 
seen assembled on a similar occasion within the walls of the 
Philosophical Institution." 

" I have not wiitten earlier," he wiites to Mr. Holland 
from Birmingham, at the close of 1838, "for two very suf- 
ficient reasons — I really had nothing to write about, and 
I have had no time to write about nothing. Never, I may 
say, have I been more actively engaged than it has been 
my lot to be from the peciiliar pressure of circumstances 
since the beginning of October, either at home in connec- 
tion with the new and unexpectedly prosperous plan of 



LECTURING TOUR. 323 

establishing a House of Kecoveiy at Sheffield, or abroad 
in delivering my lectures on the principal British Poets at 
Bristol, Birmingham, and Worcester. The impunity with 
which I bore the physical labor, and the success which ac- 
companied the intellectual exercises of this undertaking in 
the former city, emboldened me to ventm*e upon the ex- 
periment of repeating the same exertions here, as well as 
making three visits to Worcester in the intervals of each 
week. From the newspapers you will have learned that 
here I have been most cordially welcomed and counte- 
nanced by such audiences as it is a delight to look upon 
from behind a reading-desk, lending all their eyes and all 
their ears, with all their hearts too, w^hen a feeble thing 
like me is fervently and honestly endeavoring to please 
them indeed, but to do them good also in pleasing them." 

The year 1839 followed on with its manifold engage- 
ments. 

" , . . . During the months of April and May," he 
writes in July to Mr. Bennett, " I was much from home, 
and though hospitable friends made me a home wherever I 
was cast as a stranger, yet being from my own fireside, my 
time was necessarily occupied day by day in what the day 
required me to do, to suifer, or to enjoy, — for every day has 
sufficient of each to make me humble, diligent, and thank- 
ful. At Newark, Grandham, Lincoln, and Nothingham I 
delivered Lectures, which in each place were well attended. 
In May I went to Bristol to a missionary meeting, and imme- 
diately on my return entered upon a series of engagements 
of a similar kind in Stafford, from which I am just cleared. 

"To-morrow (19th of June, 1839), it will be fifty years 
since I took a step which turned the whole course of my 
life into a channel entirely contrary to its early and proper 
destination. 



324 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" What I have thus forfeited, M"hat I have thus lost, in 
time and for eternity, He only can know who sees all things 
as they are, as they might have been, and as they ought to 
be. Fifty years ago I cast myself away — but He did 7iot 
cast me away. Goodness and mercy have followed me all 
my days, through all my wanderings ; and it is yet possible 

— for with God all things are possible — that I may dwell 
in his house for ever. Amen ! Amen ! So be it ! And 
there may I meet you and all whom we have loved that 
are gone thither already, and all whom we love, and are 
yet on the way ! The first of my hymns in the ' Chris- 
tian Psalmist,' beginning ' I left the God of truth and 
light,' was written on the anniversary of that apostate act 
of sin, of folly, and of shame, in 1807 — sixteen years after 
I had committed it." 

On the 25th of October of the same year, the Wesley ans, 
not only in Great Britain but in every quarter of the world, 
celebrated the " Centenary of Methodism " with appropri- 
ate reUgious services, including the singing of a hymn " A 
hundred years ago," composed for the occasion by Mont- 
gomery, and published, with musical accompaniments by 
different parties, at the beginning of the year. 

" On that day," said he, in a missionary speech a month 
afterwards, " from the rising of the sun to the going down 
of the same, and in different lands throughout his entire 
circuit round the globe, there had not been one hour, 
through the four-and-twenty, in which, from some portion 
of the Wesleyan body, had not been ascending to heaven 

— glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will 
towards men ! On that day the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ had been abvmdantly poured upon the congrega- 
tions, and families, and individual members who entered 



REPLY AND COUNTER REPLY. 325 

into the sjiirit of tliat religious commemoration. But while 
the pi'aises of that hallowed day were for the past, the 
l^rayers of the faithful were put up for the blessing of God 
on the succeeding century. Not one of the assembly pre- 
sent will witness the termination of the century just com- 
menced ; but their children may then be living — and what 
Avill be the state of the world at that time ? Assuredly, if 
the Spirit of God so prosper the work during the present 
as He has done during the past century — if you and your 
successors labor and pray as your fathers have done, the 
triumphs of the Redeemer, achieved through his instru- 
mentality, at the close of another hundred years, will be 
celebrated not only in as many lands and as many lan- 
guages as at present, but in every land and language under 
heaven." 

Fidelity to his Master is touchingly illustrated in a reply 
and counter-reply to the treasurer of the " London Associa- 
tion in Aid of the Brethren's Missions," who wrote begging 
Montgomery to be present at a public meeting of the 
society in Birmingham. 

" I am sorry to say," he replies, " that I have not the 
heart to undertake the journey to Birmingham, . . . 
and must therefore earnestly entreat you to forgive me 
for declining this engagement." He felt, however, that 
should the cause at all suffer through lack of his services, 
he should not forgive himself: accordingly next morning 
he revoked his hasty decision in a letter commencing 
thus: — "My dear friend, — Read Matthew xxi. 28-31. 
This parable has pressed so hard upon me since I wrote my 
perverse note yesterday evening, in answer to yours pro- 
posing a missionary visit to Birmingham instead of Man- 
chester, that, to deliver my conscience, I will endeavor to 
28 



326 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

go to the former place. . . . You see my weakness, 
not to call it by a harsher name : i:>ray for me, that I may 
have more faith and patience to employ the Httle strength 
yet left me." 

On Monday, February 1st, 1841, the friends of Rev. 
William Jay, of Bath, commemorated the fiftieth anniver- 
sary of his settlement as pastor of the Argyle-street Chapel, 
m that city. Christian men and women without distinction 
of sects came to testify their respect for the worth and use- 
fulness of this venerable servant of God ; " a blessed evi- 
dence," said Montgomery, " of a Philadelphian spirit yet 
Hving and breathing in a Laodicean age." 

The poet's presence was invoked ; it breathed out in his 
hymns, gloAving Avith all the significant memorials of the 
delightful occasion, the singing of which formed one of the 
most interesting parts of the special service of the day. " I 
have read the proceedings," he writes to the chairman of 
• the Jubilee Committee, in answer to the accounts sent him, 
" with great delight : for yet, amidst all the strife, envy, 
and vm charitableness in churches and heticeen churches, so 
flagrant at this time, you have shown that there arc occa- 
sions, and there may be found professors, when and of 
whom even an ungodly world can say, ' See how these 
Christians love one another !' Alas, how seldom is this 
exemplified ! 

" I thought much of you on the two days, especially on 
the Tuesday, when the meetings — the love-feasts, I ought 
to call them — were held, because with us the weather was 
tempestuous, and I feared that many of your friends might 
be disappointed. It appears, however, that whatever 
storms might rage without, there was peace within, and 
as many to enjoy it as the rooms would contain. I am 
greatly indebted to Mrs. Goodwin for the jubilee medalhon, 



LETTER TO MR. BENNETT. 327 

tlie wovkmansliip of which seems to me admirable ; the 
likeness of your good pastor is excellent, and the simple 
register of dates on either side the most appropriate inscrip- 
tion in such a case. It was a beautiful and aflecting sequel 
to the solemnities of the Sabbath, and the festivities of the 
breakfast on Tuesday, that the children and the youth were 
allowed to bring their offerings of gratitude and love to 
the father in the gospel of both old and young in your 
church and congregation, I have only to add ray heart's 
desire and prayer to God for you all, that every one of the 
number of those who jjarticipated in the privileges of those 
two memorable days may be finally associated in that place 
where, a thousand and ten thousand ages hence, each may 
remember with adoring gratitude the blessedness of those 
meetings on earth, which many of you, no doubt, felt to 
be an earnest and foretaste of the glories and felicities of 
that house of God, eternal in the heavens, 

" Where congregations ne'er break up, 
And Sabbaths have no end." 

A few weeks later, March 22d, he writes to Mr. Bennett: 
" Since I wrote last I have been much of the time at 
Ockbrook, whither I was summoned soon after to visit my 
long afiiicted brother Ignatius, who appeared as near to 
the gates of death as life could be without the peril of in- 
stant dissolution. . . . Nothing can be more affecting 
nor more consoling than his humble looks and language : 
yet absent in the body, his spirit is already present Avith 
the Lord. . . , Mr. Roberts never, in my remembrance, 
looked better or heartier — brown and ruddy, and full of 
muscular and mental energy on the verge of fourscore 
years. You will probably have received proofs of his re- 



328 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

doubtable intellect in a new tract of 1 1 2 pages, dononncing 
the Poor Law Commissioners and the whole system of 
pauper treatment in this most humane and enlightened 
Christian country. You and he, when you meet, may 
discuss the merits of this jDerformance. It is a subject 
beyond my comprehension. I am not sorry to find that 
you are already in the field against the War-fiend, who is 
struggling m various quarters, a second time, to embroil 
all Christendom in the horrors and crimes of that ' game,' 
at which ' were their jieople wise, kmgs would not often 
play.' The Duke of Wellington well said, in reference to 
the miserable outbreak in Canada, ' England cannot have a 
little Avar.' Xo ; if we fall out with America, we shall not 
long be at peace with Fi-ance ; and with the latter we 
cannot be long at war without all the powers of Europe 
being involved in the quarrel, some Avith, some against us. 
Then, in the ' Dance of Death,' ' change hands, cross over,' 
with each in turn for our partner, and all in turn our 
enemies, the only worse thing than being our allies, as it 
happened during the revolution. I heartily Avish you 
success in your campaign, and that 'the dogs of War,' 
whether in America, France, the LcA^ant, India, or China, 
may have nothing to gnaw but their chains, till such 
engines of wholesale destruction shall be perfected as Bona- 
parte himself, which, though he would not have scrupled 
to employ, he Avould not have dared to encounter. Then, 
' Farewell, war, forever ! ' " 

On Easter Monday we find him as usual at the annual 
dinner of the Chimney SAveeps at Cutler's Hall, this being 
its thirty-fourth anniversary. In the evening he presided 
and spoke with his wonted fervor at a meeting of the 
London Missionary Society. 

On the foUoAving day he was present at the opening of a 



BURIAL OF IGNATIUS. 329 

small school at Wincobank, where the boys and girls sang 
the hymn, 

" A children's temple here we raise," 

written for the occasion : thus " on benign commissions 
bent," 

" Like a patriarchal sage, 

Holy, humble, cautious, mild, 
He could blend the awe of age 
With the sweetness of a cliild," 

and " prove himself the minister of all." 

On the 29th of April, his brother beloved, Ignatius, 
breathed his last, at the age of sixty- five, "having proved 
himself a good and faithful servant to various congregations 
of the United Brethren in England and Ireland." 

May-day Montgomery went to Ockbrook, where he was 
joined by his only surviving brother, Robert, from Wool- 
wich. 

Together they took their last look on the departed one, 
" and there were yet lingering " [on the face], James tells 
us, " traces of that i:)lacid resignation which had always 
marked it in life — the lingering twihght which followed 
the shining of that Sun of Righteousness amidst which the 
spirit of a good man has passed into a better world." 

He "w^as buried near the chapel at Ockbrook, with the 
touching services of the Moravian church, the lark singing 
sweetly overhead, and the finches thrilling in the trees 
during the ceremony. 

" Never were joy and grief more solemnly and happily 
mingled," writes the bereaved brother to Mr. Bennett, "than 
on that occasion, when, after our simple burial-service, the 

members of our small congregation had a social meeting 

28* 



330 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

(we call such "love-feasts") in the chapel, where a brief 
memorial of the departed was read, and an ode of collected 
verses, according to our practice, of various measures and 
tunes, was sung, treating of the blessedness of those who 
are forever with the Lord. 

" My brother Robert is now with me at Sheffield, and 
next week accompanies me for a few days to Fulneck. In 
the beginning of June I am engaged to accompany our 
friend, the Rev. Peter Latrobe, on a missionary visit to 
Scotland, my native country, on which I have not set foot 
since the year 1776, when, as a child, I was transplanted to 
Ireland, and thence, in 1777, transferred to England, where 
I have become so rooted, and apparently so irradicable, 
that neither our late Rowland [Hodgson] nor yourself 
could, even for a short time, carry me oif to the Conti- 
nent, or across the Atlantic. But I believe I am where I 
ought to be, and have no choice that I dare maJce, except 
manifestly directed by that good Providence which, after 
I had once made a had choice for myself, has not forsaken 
me. I feel myself ' faint, yet pursuing.' " 

It was during this family affliction at Ockbrook, that he 
wrote the hymn. Father ! thy icill, not J7une be done. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

VISIT TO SCOTLAND — RECEPTIOX AT GLASGOW — DR. WARDLAw'S SPEECH 
OF WELCOME — MONTGOMERY'S REPLY — HIS ACCOUNT OF THE MORA- 
VIANS — PDBLIC BREAKFAST — RECEPTION AT HIS NATIVE PLACE — 
RECEPTION AT GREENWICH, STIRLING, DUNDEE, EDINBURGH, ETC. — 
DR. UUIE'S speech — CONTRIBUTION FOR MORAVIAN MISSIONS — MONT- 
GOMERY^'S APPEARANCE IN COMPANY. 

" I AM a Scotchman," said Montgomery, " because I was 
born in Scotland ; I ought to have been an Irishman, be- 
cause both my parents were such ; and I pass for an En- 
gUshman, because I was caught young and imported hither 
before I was six years old, and have never since seen my 
native country except as a dim wreath of haze from the 
top of Helvellyn and Skiddaw." 

The current of business never seems to have set towards 
Scotland ; and the multiplicity of his more jDOsitive engage- 
ments had hitherto left him Uttle time to make pleasure 
and mere personal gratification the aim of a journey 
thither. 

As he grew older, travelling towards his setting sun, 
its slanting beams, gilding the tree-tops of his early days, 
retinted the past and awoke an unspeakable yearning to 
revisit his native town and country. 

A favorable opportunity at length offered, when Rev. 
Peter Latrobe invited the poet to accompany him to Scot- 



332 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

land in behalf of the Moravian Missions, thus linking a noble 
object with the enjoyments of the journey. 

They started from Sheffield on the 24th of September, 
1841, and three days after we find them in a large assem- 
bly in the Trades' Hall of Glasgow, convened on behalf of 
the cause they came to advocate. 

After the business of the morning was introduced, Dr. 
Wardlaw arose, from whose eloquent speech we catch the 
spirit of the day, and the right hearty hospitaUty of their 
Scottish welcome. 

" I never arose," said the revered speaker, " with greater 
pleasure on any occasion than I now feel in introducing 
these dear Christian friends, who will best and most efiec- 
tually introduce themselves, and will recommend both 
themselves and the cause of their visit to Glasgow. I 
now rise, however, with the more pleasure, because I take 
dehght in looking these friends in the face, in seeing them 
amongst us, in haihng their presence, in giving them the 
right hand of fellowship, and in co-operating along wdth 
all who are now present in that good and blessed cause 
to which we are indebted for their presence. With regard 
to the friend on your right hand, I have not the pleasure 
of his personal acquaintance ; but the name of Latrobe is 
associated wath every hallowed recollection. I cannot for- 
get the name of him who w^as the intimate friend of Wil- 
berforce and other eminent Christian j^hilanthropists of his 
day ; and in connection with the African mission, many a 
time have I heard the name of Latrobe, under my father's 
domestic roof, from the lips of the late Dr. Balfour, whose 
name cannot be mentioned in this city without calling forth 
feelings of afiection and veneration in every bosom which 
had the happiness to know him. And it is a very delight- 
ful thiuw when the work of God is thus handed down from 



DR. WARDLAWS SPEECH. 333 

father to son, carried down from generation to generation, 
and race after race helps it towards its lierfection. With 
regard to the other dear friend on your left hand, my ac- 
quaintance with him is of a far, far more remote date ; for 
it began in The World before the Flood. I had knoAvn a 
little of him before ; but it was there that I became first 
intimately acquainted with the character of his mind, and 
with the intellect, the genius, the imagination, the taste, 
the feeling, and the piety with which that mind is distin- 
guished. I do dehght, Mr. Chairman, and I trust that all 
here will respond to the exj^ression of delight, in the con- 
templation of sanctified genius — of genius baptized into 
Christ, and invested with a halo of heavenly purity and 
love. There was a time, and that not far distant, when we 
were accustomed to use the designation of the Christian 
Poet ; and every one who heard that designation knew to 
whom it referred — the poet Cowper — and he eminently 
deserved the designation. But it is the delight of our 
hearts to know that the definite article is now superseded. 
We have more Christian poets than one ; and jire-eminent 
amongst them stands the friend on your left hand. I can- 
not imagine any responsibiUty more heavy than the pos- 
session of lofty powers of genius, unconnected with piety, 
and unconsecrated to the praise of that God by whom 
they were bestowed. Such powers have always appeared 
to me like lamps of jiurc oil gleaming in the midst of se- 
jDulchral darkness and corruption. There is a deep respon- 
sibility connected with the possession of such powers ; but 
we rejoice to know that these powers have been in an 
eminent manner, by our friend, devoted to the honor and 
consecrated to the service of God, and the advancement 
of human happiness in the highest degree. He has con- 
secrated these powers to the service of God and the pro- 



334 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

motion of .all that is connected with the present and 
everlasting happiness of mankind. "We rejoice therefore 
in having him amongst us ; and we rejoice because we 
regard him as a Christian poet, and one belonging to our 
own land. When first I had the happiness of becoming 
acquainted with him personally, I found him, I may be 
allowed to say, in the most unpoetical place it was possible 
for a poet to occupy — in the very centre of the dark, 
dusky, smoky town of Shefiield ; and it seemed to me as 
if he had chosen that j^articular place to illustrate the 
words, ' Ex fumo dare lucem ! ' He has now changed 
his residence — he is now on The Mount, the very place 
where a poet ought to be. He belongs to ourselves ; Scot- 
land claims him for her own ; and it would ' ill the bard 
beseem ' to be ashamed of Scotland ; but whatever may 
be the feeling on his part, Irvine and Scotland will never 
be ashamed, but consider it an honor to have given him 
birth. But he is now amongst us in another capacity. As 
has been pubUcly announced to us, he is the son of mission- 
ary parents, and that is no small honor — of missionary 
j)arents too, who, after having submitted to terrible calami- 
ties, sleep, as the poet has told us, where the sun 

" ' Shines Avithout a shadow on their graves.' 

I cannot help being struck with that line, not only from 
the fact it states, that his parents sleep under a vertical 
sun, but because associated with that fact is the pleasing 
thought that all is light over that hallowed sjDOt far away, 

" ' Where rest the ashes of the sainted dead.' " 

Mr. Latrobe reciprocated this Christian salutation, after 
which Montgomery presented the claims of the brethren : 



HIS SPEECH IN GLASGOW. 335 

" In this place I ought to address you as brethren and 
sisters," he said — and as his remarks unfold glimpses of 
Moravian history, we give them at large — "I am your 
countryman, and for the lirst time after a lapse of three- 
score years, I appear on my native soil. I feel it to he a 
high privilege to be permitted to meet you, and to make 
my public ajDpearance as your countryman, in a place 
where, in one of the first sentences I heard from the 
reverend gentleman who ofiered up the opening prayer, 
the name of Jesus was mentioned. That is the name in 
which we meet ; that is the name that is peculiarly 
preached as Jesus Christ and him crucified — as the only 
ground of the hoi^e of salvation for perishing sinners. My 
friend and brother Latrobe alluded to one of the peculiar 
institutions of our Church, namely, the body of interces- 
sors, Avhose duty it is to bear the congregation on their 
hearts in faithful prayer ; but we do not thereby set aside 
the all-prevailing intercession which is continually made be- 
fore the throne ; we know only God the Father, and the 
only mediator we hold is the Lord Jesus Christ. [After 
explaining this peculiar institution a little more at large, 
Mr. Montgomery proceeded.] You have heard great, and 
wonderful, and glorious things spoken this day concerning 
the United Brethren. Their first denomination was de- 
rived from those followers of Huss who did not choose to 
defend their liberty and religion with the sword, but pre- 
ferred rather to suiFer than to fight. Their first denomina- 
tion was. Brethren of the Society of Jesus ; but there was 
a certain reason why it was necessary to change that to a 
simpler form, and they chose to be called the ' United 
Brethren ; ' united in Christ as the Head, having the ever- 
lasting strength to support them, and infinite wisdom to 
guide them. But who are the United Brethren ? We are 



336 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

not a national Chiirch, we are not a i^rovincial Church, we 
are not a denomination separated from any Church, and 
confined to any one locality. The United Brethren have 
been a poor and an afflicted people for four centuries past, 
but whose trust has been in the Lord ; and they have been 
scattered here and there over the world. At the time of 
the persecution, which for two centuries threatened to ex- 
tirpate the Church, they expatriated themselves. When 
the Church seemed consumed by the flames of persecution, 
becoming seven times hotter from century to century, and 
its members were scattered to all the winds of heaven from 
the mountains and forests of Bohemia, sparks fell from be- 
yond the boundary of that country — sparks which the 
Lord's Spirit breathed upon, till they became a flame, 
which will not be extinguished so long as there shall exist 
hearts in which that flame is put, and whose duty it is to 
keep it continually burning. It Avas not an earthly flame 
that issued out of that burning persecution, but a light 
kindled at the altar before the throne of God, and which 
those who received the gospel in their hearts promised to 
go forth and preach in the simjilicity of men who were de- 
termined to know nothing on earth but Jesus Christ and 
him crucified as the Saviour of sinners. That Church has 
some other 2)eculiarities. It is the least of all the tribes of 
Israel ; it is divided into widely separated sections ; yet 
still it is the Church of the United Brethren at home and 
abroad, in the islands of the West Indies, in Greenland, in 
Labrador, in North America, and South Africa. Where- 
ever it has carried the gospel, it has still been as a united 
Church — united in sjoirit, and that spirit under the influ- 
ence and guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. We are 
peculiar in another respect. The great work we are called 
to perform is far beyond the temporal means of support of 



HIS SPEECH IN GLASGOW. 337 

those engaged in it. It lias pleased the Lord to make the 
Church of the Brethren dependent more or less on every 
other Christian Church with which we hold communion 
and fellowship in doctrine and worship. The annual e?:- 
pense of 12,000^. for supporting our missions is not raised 
amongst ourselves. We cannot, with the utmost exertion, 
produce more than one fourth, or, at the most, one third of 
the amount ; but the Lord has made his people willing, on 
every hand, out of their abundance to communicate to our 
necessities. The Lord Jesus himself said, ' It is more 
blessed to give than to receive.' The greater blessing be- 
longs to those of our friends on whom he has conferred the 
privilege of giving; and we must hope to enjoy the smaller 
by receiving of their bounty. What the Lord Jesus Christ 
has given to you, and what you, as his stewards, have 
bestowed upon us, must be accounted for by us both to 
Him and to you ; and when the details of that expenditure 
come before you, it will be apj^arent that there has been 
no want of economy in all our arrangements. My friend 
has intimated how self-denying the Brethren are. Our 
missionaries labor without hire, exce2:>t a very small provi- 
sion for the education of their children, and a small retir- 
ing allowance. But do they labor without wages ? No ; 
they ask and they receive the greatest reward which thc}^ 
can enjoy under heaven ; they are not content with a less 
price for their labors and privations among the heathen 
than that which will satisfy the Redeemer, when He shall 
see of the travail of his soul. They require souls for their 
hire ; and souls in the last day shall rise up and come from 
the east and from the west, fi-om the north and from tlie 
south, and shall sit down with them and with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of their father." 
Mr. Montgomery j^roceeded briefly to sketch the history 
29 



338 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

of the Moravian Cliurcli, the origui of which he dated 
about the ninth century, when missionaries came into Mo- 
ravia, Bulgaria, and Bohemia, with the Scriptures in their 
hands, and translated them into the languages of these 
provinces. " It was a remarkable fact," he observed, 
" that a princess of Bohemia was married to Richard the 
Second ; and when she came to the Court of Britain she 
found herself among those who professed the same Chris- 
tian doctrines as herself; and she became the patroness of 
WickliiFe and the Reformers in England, as she had patron- 
ized those in her own countiy who maintained the truth in 
opposition to the House of Austria, They lield the Scrij> 
turcs in such respect, that previous to the Reformation 
three editions of the Bohemian Scriptures were printed by 
these people, and used throughout that jJi'ovince. The last 
effort of persecution threw them Avith their families into 
Alsatia, where they founded a flourishing Church ; and 
thus they became a missionary Church, as soon as they 
were called to bear the cross as a Church of martyrs." He 
could not, after three days of fatiguing travelling, which 
was more than could well be borne by a bruised reed 
which was not yet broken, and smoking flax which was not 
yet qvienched, enter at large into the statement to which 
Mr. Latrobe had invited him. He proceeded to refer to a 
few of the features of the West Indian missions. Advert- 
ing to the Danish island of Santa Cruz, he stated, that it 
had been proposed to him to suggest to the leading men in 
the Church the propriety of superseding the mixed French, 
German, Dutch, and English, which form the language of 
the islands, with the English alone, which it was proposed 
shoi;ld be taught in the mission schools. " This," he re- 
marked, " was a proposal not to be hastily taken up, nor to 
be hastily laid down ; for he was persuaded that the time 



HIS SPEECH IN GLASGOW. 339 

might come, and he trusted that the tune would come, 
when all the nations should have one language, and that 
language the English. The island of Santa Cruz was with- 
out a parallel in the history of missions, and without an 
example in the history of the world. It was purchased by 
a Danish councillor from the French who had deserted it, 
and left it to lie waste for forty years. They had heard to- 
day that it now embraces a population of 25,000. It oc- 
cured to this councillor to call in the aid of the United 
Brethren, with whose self-denial and patient endurance he 
was already acquainted ; and he jirevailed upon fourteen of 
them to settle amongst the negroes whom he placed upon 
the island. During forty years it had lain fallow, produc- 
ing rank luxuriant vegetation and poisonous underwood. 
In the first year, ten of the Brethren, — so it was ordered 
in the Divine government, — laid their bones in the soil of 
that inhospitable island ; but others were ready to take 
their places, and the work of God, under all possible diffi- 
culties, continued to flourish. lie did not attribute all the 
pros^^erity which had attended the colony to the mission- 
aries ; it was not altogether the efiect of their labors, but 
it was intimately connected with them. It was objected 
by may who misunderstood the character of missionary 
labor, that they went among the heathen to Christianize 
them before they civUized them. " Our brethren," he con- 
tinued, " go with the gospel in their hands, and the power 
of the gospel in their hearts. Their system is aggressive. 
They do not begin with the young, or with the middle- 
aged, or Avith those who are verging towards the close of 
life ; they preach to old and young the simple testimony 
which converted the first Greenlander, and which in every 
place where the Brethren have carried the gospel, has 
been the means of conversion ; they simply, faithfully, 



340 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

and fervently preach Christ crucified, which jDroves itself 
to be the power of God and the wisdom of God unto 
salvation." 

A few days after, a public breakfast was given at the 
Black Bull Inn, in honor of the venerable jioet, where a 
hundred gentlemen assembled to mingle in the social en- 
joyments of the occasion. 

Their guest, verging to three-score years and ten, and 
meeting the company in the three-fold character of coun- 
trymen, friends, and Christians, seemed thrilled with tender 
and serious emotions. 

Briefly rehearsing the leading incidents of his Ufe since 
leaving Scotland at four years and a half old, and express- 
ing his strong attachment to Britain, as bound to her by a 
three-fold cord, having had a home in each of her three 
principalities, he declared he could in no way better express 
his feehngs than in the language of a poem written twenty- 
five years before, " I love thee, O my native isle," which 
he read with the earnest and simple utterance which marks 
true feeling. 

On his arrival at Irvine, his native town, the Provost, 
magistrates, and council met him at the station, and havmg 
conducted him to the hall, made him a burgess of that 
ancient and royal burgh. The heart of all Irvine seemed 
moved on the occasion, and old and young, rich and poor, 
" lads running barefoot and lasses glowing with pleasure," 
came forth to welcome the poet to his birth-place. 

Dressed in a plain suit of black, his ample shirt-ruffles 
and locks of snowy whiteness bespeak an age gone by, 
while the unwrinkled cheek and clear-speaking countenance 
disclose a fresh and unworn spirit within. With no ordi- 
nary interest did he seek his cottage home, gaze upon the 
landscapes that smiled upon his childhood, and receive the 



KECEPTION AT EDINBURGH. 341 

honest grip of an old Scottish grand-dame, who dandled 
him upon her knee in infancy and smootlied the pillow of 
his dying sister, and whose rehearsal of his nursery days 
filled him with a strange and sad delight. 

Services were held to promote the special object of the 
visit, and a public breakfast was given in honor of their 
revered guest. 

During the visit, he was told that the archives of the 
town contained a manuscript copy of one of Burns's poems, 
and that a similar memorial of his genius would be highly 
prized. 

On his return, finding among his papers the original copy 
of The World before the Flood, written in 1813, he sent 
it to the authorities of his native town, accompanied by 
a handsome edition of his poems, just issued at London. 

The deputation visited Paisley, Greenock, Stirling, Perth, 
Dundee, and many places of historic interest, when we 
enter Edinburgh with them, where they were received 
with the same lively interest which marked their recep- 
tion elsewhere. Gentlemen of all i^arties came forward 
to welcome Montgomery, and do honor to his genius. 

"It is refreshing," said Dr. Huie, at a public breakfast, 
"to see amongst us that venerable bard, on whose writ- 
ings we have so often dwelt with admiration and delight ; 
whether we wandered with him over the mountain soli- 
tudes of Switzerland, or visited with him the tornado- 
rocked dwellings of the "West Indies, the ice-bound coasts 
of Greenland, or the enchanting scenery of the Pelican 
Island ; or whether, surrendering our imaginations more 
completely to his guidance, we permitted him to carry us 
back through the vista of departed ages to the World be- 
fore the Flood, It is no small praise, sir, to say of an un- 
inspired writer, that the pleasure which we derive from 
29* 



342 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

his "works is pure and unmingled ; and yet such is the case 
with the poems of our fi-iend, Mr. Montgomery. Brightly 
though the cup of his fancy sparkles, there is no poison in 
the chalice ; sweet though the flowers be which he scatters 
around us, there is no serpent imderneath to sting the 
hand that gathers them. But high though this praise is, 
our honored guest deserves a higher still. He has tuned 
his lyre to the loftiest theme which can engage the mind 
or the imagination of man; he has sung in hallowed strains 
the triumphs of incarnate Deity ; and he has supplied us 
with befitting language in which to express our devotional 
feehngs, in almost every conceivable variety of circum- 
stances. I belicA'C, sir, that there is no one here who has 
not felt and acknowledged this — whether in teaching the 
lisping babe upon his knee that 

" ' Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try ; ' 

or whether, looking forward, in an hour of grief and deso- 
lation, to the last resting-j^lace of the mourner, he has re- 
joiced to think that 

" ' There is a calm for those that weep, 
A rest for weary pilgrims found ; 
They softly lie and sweetly sleep 
Low in the ground ; ' 

or whether, rising on imagination's wing, he has soared 
to the third heaven, and, overpowered by the flood of 
glory which has there burst upon him, has exclaimed, in 
tones of rapture — 

" ' What are these in bright array ? 
Tliis innumerable tlirong? 
Round the altar, night and day, 
Tuning their triumphal song? ' 



SUCCESS OF HIS JOURNEY. 343 

It is not only as a poet, then, but as a Christian poet — and 
not as a Christian poet merely, but as the first Christian 
poet of the day — the Cowper, as he has been well termed, 
of the nineteenth century — that, in the name of this meet- 
ing and of my fellow-citizens, I bid Mr. Montgomery wel- 
come, thrice welcome, to Edinburgh ; and express a hope, 
that although this be his first, it will not be his last visit to 
the metropolis of his native land. But, Sir, I must not 
forget that we are met here for a higher and a holier pur- 
pose than to render honor to man for what the grace and 
the Spirit of God have enabled him to do." 

The highest respect which could be rendered to the poet 
was service done to the cause which brought him to Scot- 
land, and whose advocacy he ever made prominent over all 
things else. The charms of those literary circles which 
adorn her metropolis, the almost classic records of her soil, 
and the distinguished courtesies everywhere proffered him, 
could never divert his mind from the direct object of his 
journey as "a messenger from the United Brethren." 
Personal distinctions, not undervalued or hghtly esteemed, 
met the child of the Christian missionary, and the poet 
and advocate of Christian missions, to do him honor, but 
they were ofierings which he devoutly laid upon the altar 
of the Redeemer of the world. 

After a month's sojourn, the deputation left the genuhie 
hospitalities of their Scottish Christian friends with six 
hundred pounds for the missionary treasury, and a gain of 
prayerful interest to the cause which no money could 
measure. 

Dr. Iluie, whose hospitable mansion in George-square 
was the poet's home while at Edinbui-gh, tells us, "with a 
fire-side unreserve, of his visit there : 

" His frank, yet gentle and imassuming manners, made 



344 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

liim a great favorite with my young people, who showed 
their regard for him in every possible way, leaving in his 
apartment so many little tokens of friendship, that he one 
day said to me in their presence : ' Dr. Huie, I think there 
must be fairies in your house, for I find so many fairy gifts 
in my room, that I cannot conceive where they come from, 
unless they bring them.' But his warm and benevolent 
heart appeared especially attracted toward my youngest 
son David, then just eight years of age. Him he always 
addressed in kind and paternal accents, and sjjoke of him 
in his absence, and mentioned him in the precious letters 
which I received from him after his return to Sheffield, in 
a strain of marked affection. He copied for him on a card 
his own poetical version of the Lord's Prayer, adding : — 

" ' Thus, as the Saviour taught to say, 
May little David learn to pray 1 ' 

" One day, too, when David showed him a copy of Mil- 
ton, which he had received as a prize at school, he took 
it into his hand and said, with much feehng, ' Ah ! David, 
what would I have given at your age for such a book as 
that ! ' 

" The Sunday after his arrival, he enjoyed the privilege 
of hearing two of our most eminent preachers, and after- 
wards spent the evening in interesting and edifying con- 
versation with my family, while I went to assist in taking 
up the collection in aid of the Moravian Missions, which 
was made after a sermon preached by Mr. Latrobe, in the 
largest of our city churches. On every day during the 
following week, except Thursday, I invited various friends 
to meet him at breakfast, distinguished either for their 
celebrity in literature or science, or their attachment to 
the cause of the Moravian Missions. In this way, or by 



HIS APPEARANCE IN COMPANY 345 

calling with me at their own houses, he made the acquaint- 
ance of Professor Wilson ; of his brother, Mr. James WU- 
son, the eminent naturalist ; of Mr. Mob', of Musselburgh, 
better known as the ' Delta ' of Blackwood's Magazine : 

O 7 

of Mr. Steell, the sculptor ; of Dr. Abercrombie, Dr. 
Greville, and many of our city ministers of different 
denominations. I soon found, however, that Mr. Mont- 
gomery did not shine in a large company; his sensitive 
nature shrinking from any thing like display. His con- 
versation, therefore, was usually confined to the friends 
who sat on either side of him ; and if I addressed a remark 
to him from the foot of the table, he would briefly signify 
his assent to it ; or if it were calculated to draw forth some 
observation from him, as was sometimes intentionally the 
case, he would express his opinion in as few words as pos- 
sible, and with much diffidence. But in the domestic 
circle, where none except myself and family were present, 
he gave utterance to his thoughts and feeHngs without the 
least reserve, and his conversation was of a rich and in- 
structive character. Always cheerful himself, he diffused 
an atmosphere of cheerfulness around him ; but never did 
he forget the Apostle's injunction, ' Let your sj)eech be al- 
ways with grace, seasoned with salt.' His remarks on men 
and things, and more especially on the hterature and liter- 
ary men of the day, were those of a man of candor and 
refinement, a Christian and a gentleman ; and I was de- 
hghted to find, as the result of nine days of unrestrained 
and constant interchange of thought and sentiment with 
him, that his published woi-ks were as truly the transcript 
of the feelings and conceptions of the inner man, as the 
hills and groves, mirrored in the glassy lake, are the reflec- 
tions of the landscape which surrounds it. 

" On the 25th of October my venerable friend returned 



346 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

home, and we continued to correspond at intervals for some 
years. But as the infirmities of age advanced upon him, 
he ceased to write ; although he never missed an oppor- 
tunity of sending me a kind message, in token of his afiec- 
tionate remembrance." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DEATH OK MR. r.ENNETT — ROBBERY AT THE MOUNT — VISIT TO IRELAND 
■ — DEATH OF SOUTHEY — NEW POET-LAUREATE — VISIT TO BUXTON — • 
LECTURING AT LIVERPOOL — LETTER TO DR. RAFFLES — PREMONITION 
OF OLD AGE — INNOVATIONS — WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT'S VISIT — 
LONGFELLOW — POEM TO " LILY " — CORN-LAWS — LETTER TO HOLLAND 
— HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 

Ox his 1-eturn home, Montgomery wrote Mr. Bennett on 
his birth-day, Nov. 4th, 1841 : 

" To-day I am three-score years and ten ; how I have 
spent them. He only who gave, and will soon call to ac- 
count, can know. The newspajDcrs have informed you of 
our month in Scotland, and of the Christian kmdness 
shown to ray excellent companion and myself as messen- 
gers of our poor little church. I need to watch and pray 
that I might escape harm, even from all the good which a 
gracious Providence permitted to befall me, for we are 
tried by blessings as well as adversities." 

A week scarcely elapsed, before tidings of the sudden 
death of this highly valued and truly beloved friend reached 
The Mount. It was a heavy stroke to Montgomery. 

" Ah," he wrote, in the closing lines of a little poem, 
after rallying from the shock, 

" When some long comfort ends, 

And Nature would despair, 
Faith to the heaven of heavens ascends, 

And meets ten thousand there ; 



348 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

First faint and small, then clear and bright, 

They gladden all the gloom. 
As stars that seem but points of light 

The rank of suns assume." 

Mr. Bennett died in a fit, on the road between London 
and Hackney, in the 68th year of his age. A monument 
was erected to his memory in the cemetery of Sheffield, 
with appropriate inscriptions, by his bereaved friend. 

An occurrence of lesser note, rudely jarred upon the 
tranquillity of The Mount ; the robbery of the house one 
Sabbath evening, during the absence of its master and 
Miss Gales at a religious service. Among the plunder, 
which mainly consisted of money and plate, the robbers 
helped themselves to the massive inkstand, presented to 
the poet some years before by the ladies of Sheffield : in- 
deed, most of the loss was such as money could not 
replace; but the most painful circumstance of all was a 
strong probability that " perfidy, rather than violence did 
the deed," the servant girl having herself introduced the 
thieves, and then suffered herself to be tied up in the 
cellar, to elude suspicion and excite the compassion of her 
employers. 

The matter was never prosecuted, nor were any of the 
stolen articles ever recovered ; the touching story of the 
inkstand having been returned by the penitent thief, we 
are sorry to find, is not " founded on fact." 

In the latter part of 1842, Montgomery was soUcited to 
undertake, with Mr. Latrobe, a tour in Ireland, similar to 
that made in Scotland. The feeble state of his health 
made him hesitate to start on a journey involving so much 
labor. In view however of the urgency of the case, he 
rallied his strength, and lefl Sheffield early in December. 



DEATH OF THE POET-LAUREATE. 349 

Ireland was not remiss in her recejotion of the Christian 
poet. 

Greetings like those in Scotland met him at the capital. 
But waiving all personal considerations, and anxious to 
bestow his failing strength vipon the cause which he came 
to present, "I come," he said, 'to those who would do 
him homage,' " only in one character, and that an exceed- 
ingly simple one, as a member of the Church of the United 
Brethren, and in that character as a brother to every Chris- 
tian throughout the land. I come before you as a little 
child, pleading for help to carry forward our missionary 
work, and to bear that blessed burden which it has pleased 
God to lay upon us." 

And in this character, the deputation were received and 
aided with a love and liberality which did honor to the 
Irish heart. 

On the 21st of March, 1843, the bard of Keswick 
breathed his last: — a palace in ruins he had long been. 
The over-tasked student sat at last a stranger in his own 
work-shop, his mind gone, or only faintly flickering over 
the well-read treasures of his ample library. 

At the time of his death, he was the poet-laureate, and 
who would succeed to the vacated honor, was a question 
speedily asked by the inquisitive and suggestive press. 

" Wordsworth, Campbell, Moore, and our own Mont- 
gomery, appear to be the only names which we can men- 
tion in this connection," answers a Slieffield paper. " Upon 
the last of these, as pre-eminently the ' Christian Poet ' of 
his country, the honor of successorship to his late respected 
friend would descend with a grace and propriety which, 
w^e doubt not, would be highly approved by the good and 
the wise of all j^a-i'tics." 

" I perceive you would make me poet-laureate if you 

30 



350 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

were king," said the poet, on meeting the editor the next 
morning ; " I think I could guess who Avill be, but his name 
is not on your list." 

Milman was the person alluded to, though Montgomery 
thought him less qualified for the discharge of its duties 
than likely to get it. 

A conversation following upon the manner in Avhich 
the office had been filled in modern times, " some people 
thought," said Montgomery, " that Southey was too much 
under the influence of his 'Thalabas,' 'Kehamas,' and 
'Madocs,' to be a popular English poet-laureate — but he 
deserves credit for having rescued the office from that 
degradation into which it had sunk during the incum- 
bency of his immediate predecessors, by the execution of 
those biennial compositions, which were formei'ly set to 
music by the king's composers." 

On being asked what he thought should be expected 
from a laureate of requisite note and abilities : — " A series 
of grand national odes on grand national subjects," he 
replied, "of which we do not possess a single popular 
specimen from the pen of a poet-laureate. They sliould 
combine, with a strong historical interest, all the charms 
of the old ballad j^oetry." 

Wordsworth was the favored individual ; and in a letter 
of reply to Montgomery's congratulations, a few months 
afterwards, he says : 

"I am truly sensible of the kindness of your expressions 
upon my appointment to the laureateship, which I at first 
refused on account of my advanced age. But it was after- 
wards pressed upon me so strongly by the Lord Chancellor, 
and by Sir Robert Peel himself, that I could not possibly 
persist in that refusal ; and especially as her Majesty's 
name and approval were again referred to; and I was as- 



LETTER TO SAKAII GALES. 351 

sured that it was offered me solely in consideration of what 
I bad already done in literature, and without the least view 
to future exertions, as connected with the honor. It has 
since gratified me to learn from many quarters, as you 
yourself also tell me, that the appomtment has given uni- 
versal satisfaction. And I need scarcely add, that it has 
afforded me a melancholy pleasure to be thought worthy 
of succeeding my revered friend." 

Friend after friend departing, was not the only token of 
a long life waning. The infirmities of age began to creep 
npon him. His over-coat slid on less easily ; and his fingers 
grew stiff, making writing difficult and painful. 

" There is as much music as ever in the instrument," he 
said cheerily, " but the hand has not power over the bow, 
and cannot call the spirit out." 

In the autumn he went to Buxton to try the effect of 
bathing for numbness in his right hand, Avhich, he feared 
was about " to lose its cunning." 

Playfully he reports himself to his companion at home, 
Sarah Gales : 

"Buxton, Sept. 1, 1843. 
" My Dear Saeau, 

" For once at least I am determined to send you a 
downright dull matter-of-fact letter, having no spirit even 
to write nonsense, — unless I cannot help it. After parting 
with you for the five-hundredth time (if my reckoning be 
right), since we first met, I reached the Tontine in safety, 
and got into the Buxton coach. The morning was dismal 
without, and not very bright within that part of me where 
I live, — that is where I think and feel ; for the rest of my 
clay tenement is to me but as the unoccupied rooms in our 
old house in the Hartshead, only visited occasionally when 



352 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

special necessity requires. This is a ' matter of fact,' 
though a mystery, and therefore not quite irrelevant to the 
theme of this letter. I arrived here on Tuesday : my 
coach companions were two of ' the better sex,' both 
mothers, and one, to my inexpressible dismay, had a baby 
in her arms. I have often said that, when ' I am King,' — 
that is, when I am ' King, Lords, and Commons, and all ' 
(for less authority could not do it, even if that could), I 
will make a law to prohibit, under severe penalties, any 
woman, old or young, so incumbered, from taking an inside 
place in a coach, to the annoyance of bachelors like me. 
In justice, however, to this baby, I must say it was the 
best fellow-traveller of the size that it was my fate ever to 
be thus pinfolded with, in all my adventures : it never 
cried, nor kicked, nor committed any of those nameless 
little offences which are the besetting infirmities of such 
little innocents. The worst thing, therefore, that I wish 
may ever befall it is, that, as it was the best baby that ever 
was born — every mother having had that baby — it may 
groAV up to be the best man or woman — and so I have 
done with it, and turn to less important, or, in lady's 
phrase, less interesting matters. [Then follow particulars 
about lodging, living, bathing, &c.] I have taken three 
hot baths here, but not ventured to plunge into the natu- 
rally tepid ones, which are the miracle-working waters of 
Buxton. Every day I have got abroad, and exercise my- 
self from head to foot with climbing the hills, walking 
through the plantations, or rambling down the dales . . . 
If I should make a digression to Ockbrook, instead of pre- 
senting myself at The Mount, I shall write a line to inform 
you ; meanwhile, my dear Sarah, do not be uneasy about 
me : be assured that I shall take as good care of myself, as 
though I were ten times more precious than I am, or than 



LETTER TO DR. RAFFLES. 353 

I deserve to be ; and yet I am, Avith my heart's best affec- 
tions, and most earnest prayers for your present, future, 
and everlasting welfare, your faithful and most grateful 
friend, for kindnesses which I appreciate, but can never 
repay." 

In spite of infirmities, the next year we find him at 
Liverpool, lecturing upon the poets, but he was compelled 
to decline all visiting, feeling his need of the restoring 
power of rest after the exertion of his public efforts. He 
thus writes Dr. Rafiles of that city after his return : 

"Sheffield, September 10, 184-1. 
" My Dear Fkiexd, 

" Pray permit me still to call you so, though during 
my late sojourn in Liverpool, by the help of bad manage- 
ment, I failed, time after time, in my purposes to make you 
a personal visit, and spend an hour with you, on living over 
again the days and weeks of former years, when, as your 
guest, I had the privilege to enjoy, in company with our 
late friend George Bennett, some of the pleasantest, and 
not the least profitable hours of Christian society that I 
ever remember. Twice I adventured through the sea of 
Liverpool — for to me the town with its high ways and 
bye- ways was as pathless and bewildering as tlie great deep 
itself — towards your chapel ; and by inquiring at every 
corner or open door, I reached the spot in safety. On the 
first occasion you were absent, but your pulpit was well oc- 
cupied by good Dr. Urwick of Dublin (as I understood) ; 
and an excellent discourse he delivered. I was both awed 
and affected by the largeness of the place, and the multi- 
tude of the congregation ; but yet more deeply touched on 

the following Sabbath evening to find that the congrega- 
30* 



354 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

tion Tras no more diminished than the place, when you, as 
the ordinary j^reaeher, were on duty. I confess that, 
though the thought was overpowering, I rejoiced to find 
that such a burthen of the Lord had been laid upon you, 
and that He had given, and continued to give to you, 
bodily strength and mental resources, but above all. His 
heavenly grace, and His Holy Spirit, to bear up under 
such ' a weight of glory ' as that ' burthen ' must be, — 
standing between Him and so many souls, as the one who 
must give account. This, I do trust, you will be enabled 
to render, when the thousands to whom you have min- 
istered shall rise uj? to call you blessed, and be your joy 
and crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ 
. . . I close this letter with assuring you that, with sin- 
cere gratitude for many kindnesses at your hands in years 
gone by, and with confirmed esteem and respect, I am 
your obliged friend, 

" J. Mo:n^tgomert." 

" Ah," he sadly said one day to Mr. Holland, " nothing 
can prevent us fi-om growing old." 

But if at times he sighed over the premonitions of decay, 
which bade him husband his strength for accustomed du- 
ties, and withheld him from the new and numerous calls of 
the new era dawning upon him, he did not look with dis- 
trust upon improvements, or discern more evil than good 
in these later days. 

Innovations were never scare-crows to his wide and dis- 
cerning mind. 

Speaking of "Wordsworth's sonnet deprecating the pro- 
jected Kendal and Windemere Railway : — " Poetically, the 
lines are not unworthy of their author," he said ; " but 
practically, I think he is wrong. I should have no more 



BURLESQUE FROM "PUNCH." 355 

objection to it, than to the small steamer, 'Lady of the 
Lake,' which now actually plies on Winclemere itself." 

" Pmich," remarked his friend, " represents the laureate 
as exclaiming, at the unwelcome sight of such an object in 
such a place : 

" What incubus, my goodness I have we here, 
Cumbering the bosom of our lovely lake ? 
A steam-boat, as I live I — without mistake ! 
Puffing and splashing over Windemere I 
What inharmonious shouts assail mine ear ? 
Shocking poor Echo, that perforce repUes, — 
' Ease her ! ' and ' stop her ! ' — frightful horrid cries, 
Mingling with frequent pop of ginger beer." 

He laughed, and enjoyed the quotation, saymg, " I must 
confess I always watch the progress of a steamer or of a 
railway train with pleasure, even amidst the finest of our 
home scenery at least ; and I was particularly pleased the 
other day, with observing the transit of an engine and 
train of carriages along the bank side of the River Don, 
and through the graceful skirts of Wharncliffe Wood." 

" In truth I am relinquishing," he writes to a fi-iend, 
" all my former active exertions in public affairs, holding 
my tongue in meetings, and refraining from engagements 
in private company, lest I should be drawn out in excite- 
ment or sink into apathy." 

A hard, if wholesome economy, we think, still leaping 
with the warm pulses of a heart unworn, that rallies 

" the fortitude 

And circumspection needful to preserve 
Its present blessings, and to husband up 
The respite of the season." 



356 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

It was on a bright June morning of 1844, that our own 
poet, Bryant, paid a visit to The Mount to see one, " whose 
name," he said, " he had long honored, and of the admir- 
ation of whom he had given evidence by committing to 
memory when yomig the whole of The Wanderer of Swit- 
zerland.'''' 

The quiet and unaffected manners of his American guest 
charmed Montgomery, and he felt at home with him im- 
mediately. 

" I am anxious," said he, in the course of conversation, 
" to see your poets give to their works an impression of 
native originality, more of an mterest derived from the pe- 
culiar character of their countiy, and imitate less those of 
our own — on this account I have been much pleased Avith 
Longfellow." 

Of Bryant himself this is a marked excellence, whose 
descriptive writings are essentially American, and the 
graphic felicity of whose details transport us to all the 
brilliant peculiarities of our forest scenery. 

On Montgomery playfully remarking, " You pirate our 
books so in your country, sometimes reprinting a whole 
volume in a newspaper," Bryant rejomed : " And you cer- 
tainly return the compliment ; I say nothing of Longfel- 
low's poems, which you have named ; but my own have 
all been reprinted here, without either consultation or 
concurrence on my part; and I was surprised, when in 
London the other day, to have put into my hand a me- 
tropolitan impression of a few pieces wdiich I published 
only just before I left home to complete a volume. The 
English printer seems to have thought them equally de- 
sirable to perfect his surreptitious edition." 

Longfellow seems to have been a favorite with the Shef- 
field poet. 



"THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH." 357 

" The Village Blacksmith " delighted him. " It is real 
poetry," he exclaimed on reading the little poem; "the 
inspiration of a happy moment ; and not mere rhymes got 
up on a selected subject, to show the author's skill : they 
will form a beautiful pendant to Shakspeare's graphic and 
well-known description of a smith. How happily has the 
poet described the burning toil of the worthy man ; and 
even ray own wandering curiosity, when, as a Fulneck 
school-boy, I used to peep into old John Oddy's smithy 
at Tonge : 

" Week in — week out — from morn till night 

You can hear his bellows blow ; 
You can hear liim swing his heavy sledge, 

With measured beat, and slow .... 
And cliildren coming home from school, 

Look in at the open door ; 
They love to see the flaming forge, 

And hear the bellows roar, 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 

Like chaflf from a threshing floor." 

And then the moral built upon the blacksmith's " some- 
thing attempted — something done : " 

" Thus at the flaming forge of life, 
Our fortunes must be wrought ; 
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
Each burning deed and thought ! " 

But, ah, the flames of his forge were burning dimmer 
and dimmer: 

" I have," said Montgomery, " posted to-day, for a gentle- 
man at Bath, a little poem, which I have had in hand ever 
since January, on the Grasshopper ; a subject proposed by 



358 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

himself, and intended, I believe, to illustrate some state- 
ment or other in a book on grasses. You will hardly 
believe me when I tell you, that I made nine or ten tran- 
scrijits of the piece before I could fully satisfy myself with 
it. Such a trifle would not, at one period, have cost me 
so much labor ; but now, literally as well as metaphorically, 
even ' the grasshopper is a burden ' to me." 

Lily, a little pet of five years, the grandchild of his friend 
Samuel Roberts, having suddenly died, the poet thus ex- 
presses his sympathy : 

" Deeply and affectionately s^inpathizing wdth you and 
each respectively of your family, sufferers by the late be- 
reavement, I can only add, that, though the delight of your 
eyes has been taken away with a stroke, the desire of your 
hearts, — their treasure, for so brief a time in possession, — 
is, I verily believe, where all your treasures ought to be — 
in heaven, and whither to the end may every one among 
your number seek it individually, and find it for ever ; since 
there it cannot be lost, and there its ti'ue value can alone 
be known, as the purchase of the precious blood of Jesus 
Christ — the richest ransom which eternal love itself could 
pay." 

The following lines were enclosed : 

'"'• In Memory of JEJ. C. M. {Lily)^ loho died aged Jive years. 

" She was a spirit, sent 

Oa earth a little while ; 
She came among us, peeped, and went 

Away like her own smile ; 
Tliat smile, which oft, with childhood's grace, 
Showed us heaven's image in her face, 
The mirror of a soul, from whence 
Sin had not banished innocence. 



OPINION OF CORN LAWS. 359 

" She was a jewel rare, 

Precious beyond all price ; 
Not lost, as worldly treasures are, 

But lodged in Paradise ; 
Where, at the rising of the just, 
"We pray, we hope, we humbly trust 
To see her shine, a glorious gem 
In the Kedecmer's diadem. 

" She was a love-knot, tied 

By Heavenly Love's own hand, 
To hold, what death could not divide, 

In one united hand. 
The cords of many a gentle heart. 
Which parting only seem'd to part. 
For Lily cannot cease to be 
Our love-knot in eternity. 



"The Mount, June, 1845." 



J. M. 



Towards the end of December, great public anxiety was 
manifested in consequence of the sudden breaking up of 
Sir Robert Peel's government ; and the attempt, ultimately 
unsuccessful on the part of Lord John Russell, to form an 
administration on the basis of a coaHtion of parties favor- 
able to an immediate abolition of the Corn Laws. This 
crisis of the Cabinet was rendered still more interesting by 
the unexpected demise of Lord Wharncliffe, at this time 
President of the Px'ivy Council. In these occurrences 
Montgomery seemingly evinced a more lively concern 
than he had latterly been wont to take in political move- 
ments. 

" I have been thinking," he said, " about the Corn Laws : 
I am, perhaps, not a competent, though I am certainly a 
disinterested judge in the question, and I must confess I 



360 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

can neither perceive in what way they must needs be so 
mischievous as they are said to be, nor how their aboHtion 
will certainly lead to all those great national benefits that 
some persons appear to anticipate ; but stronger heads and 
sterner wills than mine will determine the issue, I only 
wish the conflict was well over." He had, a few days pre- 
viously, rated Mr. Holland for not going to hear Mr. 
Cobden speak at the Cutler's Hall. " I should have gone 
to hear myself," said the poet, " if I could have been in- 
visible, or allowed to make one of the crowd ; but I did 
not Hke to encounter the risk of being invited to take a 
seat on the platform." 

In the autumn of 1846, with Miss Gales, he projected a 
jaunt to Harrogate. 

" I am glad you are going," said a friend ; " these autumn 
days are so fine." 

" Aye," answered the poet, in a tone of sadness, " they 
may be so to young men, who talk of those pensive sensa- 
tions which old men feelP 

" It was a kind of triumj)h once," is his monody, — 

" to see 

" All nature die, and find myself at ease, 
In youth, that seemed an immortality : 
But I am changed now, and feel with trees 
A brotlierhood, and in their obsequies 
Think of my own." 

From Harrogate, Sept. 18th, 1846, he writes to his 
friend, John Holland, as follows : 

" I ought to have written to you sooner, though there 
being no high pressure upon my conscience, I have as usual 
deferred the obligation to the last hour. . . . Miss 
Gales and I arrived here safely on Tuesday evening. Mr. 



LETTER TO JOHN HOLLAND. 301 

Blackwell met us on our alighting at the entrance of this 
multifarious collection of all manner of human dwellings, 
where there are fewer homes than houses ; the latter, in 
bulk and accommodations, being built and furnished for 
pilgrims and sojourners rather than for the resident inhabit- 
ants. Yet at this season so overflowing is the tide of pop- 
ulation, that on our arrival, had not our friend Mr. B. been 
warned of our coming, we might, indeed, have found room 
enough on High Harrogate Common to spread our gar- 
ments on the green sward, and rested on our mother's lap, 
and under the infinity of space, where all the host of 
heaven sleep by day and watch by night ; for no narrower 
bed or lower roof might have been accessible to afford us 
shelter. 

" Our journey was pleasant and easy ; and though I, of 
course, had forecast in my melancholy and ever-misgiving 
mind all manner of petty incidents and vexations to cross 
us by the way, — laying out of the question the 2^osslble 
possibilities of explosions, crashes, dangers, and deaths, 
that imperil travellers by railway, we might, undisturbed, 
have slept and dreamt most marvellously of these horrors, 
without one hair-breadth 'scape, between The Mount and 
Cornwall ITouse, where we are now quartered, and which 
ought to be called ' The Mount ' of Harrogate, being on 
the highest point yet built upon, and overlooking all below, 
at a safe distance from the smoke, the smells, the bustle, 
and ' all the goings on ' (Coleridge's phrase) of human life 
iu this strange place. Strange, surely, it is, where more is 
seen, and hoard, and done, and thought, and said, and suf- 
fered, and all the rest of sublunary things — more of these 
occur and pass in the three months of which a Harrogate 
year consists than in the remaining nine in common places 
where everything is common-place from the first of January 
31 



362 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

to the last of December. . . . We are very comfort 
ably lodged under the same roof with Mr. Blackwell's 
family, having our separate establishments, but being very 
good neighbors. Miss Gales, with her kind regards, says, 
you shall be very welcome if you will visit us here, and we 
will make as much of you as we can. Don't forget to call 
at The Mount ; and any letters worth sending, forward as 
soon as you can. ■ I have neither rooin nor time to say 
Farewell, as witness the word itself" 

" You mention honey," he replies to a female friend, 
respecting a promised gift, " and very considerately oifer to 
send me some if I Uke it, and on a certain condition. I do 
like it, and consent to the condition, if not to be bound by 
the letter, yet to keep it according to the spirit. ' What is 
sweeter than honey?' was one of the jjoints of Samson's 
riddle. One of the Apocryphal writers (Eccles, xi. 3) 
says, beautifully, ' The bee is little among such as fly ; but 
her fruit is the chief of sweet things.' On higher and 
holier authority, however, I find that there is indeed some- 
thing on earth, even sweeter than ' the fruit ' of the bee, 
and no wonder, for it came down from heaven, and is yet 
more delicious than that ' angels' food,' the manna that was 
sent to the children of Israel in the wilderness. The inspired 
Psalmist says, Ps. xix. — see verses 9, 10, and Ps. cxix. v. 
103 ; and you know that these things are so, for you 'have 
tasted the good word of God ; ' and may you ever live 
thereby ! For this, may I too hunger and thirst, that my 
soul may live by it through both worlds ; for it is the seed 
of eternal life when soAvn and quickened in a prepared 
heart. I have only to add, in answer to your kind enquir- 
ies, that new maladies, almost necessarily incurable in old 
bodies, multiply upon me with years ; and I must be thank- 
ful for comparative exemption from very pamful ones. 



SONNET FROM HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 3G3 

An internal symptom of morbid disease, without anything 
to be called suffering, is my latest warning of a decaying 
tabernacle." 

The friends retunied from their visit to Harrosrate, im- 
proved in health and spirits. 

The first business we find him attending to is the disposal 
of a hundred pounds, given him by Mr. Roberts for the 
Moravian Brethren, fifty of which he bestowed upon their 
missions, and fifty for their ministers' fund. This gentle- 
man had already made him his almoner to the amount of 
six or seven hundred pounds for similar purposes at various 
times — tributes of personal friendship, as well as proofs of 
Christian liberality. 

A few days afterwards, a stranger called upon the poet, 
who playfully presented the following epistle of introduc- 
tion from his friend : 

" To the Poet James Montgomery. 

" Poets there are, whom I am weU content 
Only to see in mirror of their verse, 
Feeling their very presence might disperse 
Tlie glorious vision which their lines present ; 
But never could my shaping vrit invent 
An image worthy of a Christian bard 
Such as thou art — but ever would discard 
Conceit too earthy and irreverent 

To be thy likeness. Therefore I regret 
The fate, or fault, or whatsoe'er it be, 
Hath made thy holy lineament as yet 
A vague imagination unto me. 
I more should love and better understand 
Thy verse, could I but hold thee by the hand. 

" IIaktley Coleridge." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WILBERFORCE — IIOWITt's " HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE POETS " — 
VISIT TO WATU — REMINISCENCES OF YOUTH — ROSCOE CLUB — DEATH 
OF FRIENDS. 

The clergy of Sheffield having had a i:)rivate meeting to 
consider M'hether anything shoidd be done to counteract 
the spread of po^Dcry, concluded not to make a public 
demonstration, but to hinder the growth of error by a 
more diligent sowing of the truth. 

" They are right," said Montgomery ; " they seem to 
have acted on the plan of the old penknife cutler, who 
determined that he would go to bed for a day, in order to 
devise new patterns ; but his faculty of invention proving 
wholly unproductive, he got up, resolved to do nothing ; 
saying, he thought the old patterns were, after all, the best !" 

" Have you read the Rev. Henry Wilberforce's discourse 
on Christian unity ?" asked a friend. 

" I have : the Protestant clergyman is as infallible, in his 
own opinion, as the Pope himself, and far less reasonable : 
he assumes, indeed, without one tittle of evidence, or even 
of argument, that his church is the cnuRCH ; and then, 
with as much dogmatical gravity as the Roman pontift' 
could arrogate, he declares that l)eyond the pale of his 
communion there is no salvation : with equal bigotry does 
the vicar of East Farleigh pronounce, not only that ' all 



"HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE POETS." 3G5 

dissent is sin,' but he tells lis, ' how veiy shocking it is, 
that many good sort of people think nothing of coming to 
church on the Sunday morning, and then going to meeting 
in the evening.' " 

The preacher's excellent father often went to Mr, Jay's 
chapel, at Bath, as well as to other dissenting places of 
worship ; and it is lamentable to find his sons not only 
shirking facts of this kind, but actually rejjudiating, by 
their own extravagant sentiments of conduct, the evangel- 
ical catholicity of their revered father's character. 

This year, also, aj^ijeared Ilowitt's " Homes and Haunts 
of the English Poets," which Montgomery read with much 
interest. 

" He is quite alive to coincidences," remarked the poet, 
" as in such a work he ought to be. I was amused with 
his statement to the effect that the house in which Moore 
was born is now a whisky shop ; that Burns's native cot- 
tage is a public house ; Shelley's house at Great Marlow, a 
beer-shop ; the sj^ot where Scott was born occupied with a 
building used for a similar j^urpose ; and even Coleridge's 
residence at Nether-Stowey, the very house in which the 
poet composed that sweet ' Ode to the Nightingale,' is now 
an ordinary beer-house. Had his visit to Sheffield been 
only a few months later, my own forty years' residence 
would doubtless have been added to this list ; for as Miss 
Gales and I walked up the Hartshead the other day, talk- 
ing of ' cmld lang syne^ and not forgetful of the very un- 
complimentary character which Mr. Howitt had given to 
that locality, what was our consternation to perceive that 
our old house was actually converted into a Tom-and-Jerry 
shop ! But what do you think of Mr. Howitt's discov- 
ery that Wordsworth's system, which so long puzzled the 

reviewers, is a system of poetical Quakerism ? You know 
(J] * 



366 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

something about the ' haunts ' of George Fox in this neigh- 
borhood ; and about his Journal, which I never saw ; but 
which I believe shows him to have been, with all his ex- 
travagance and enthusiasm, an indefatigable, as well as a 
sincere, laborer and suiierer in what he considered to be 
the cause of ev^angelical truth. Now my sur^^rise and re- 
gret has always been, in reference to some of the most 
justly celebrated of Wordsworth's poems, that they should 
be so entirely devoid of all allusion to spiritual things, as 
the latter are disclosed in the Scrijrtures and in the experi- 
ence of real Christians." 

" In the month of April, this year," says Mr. Holland, 
" the whole kingdom was agitated with discussions relative 
to the effects likely to be pi'oduced by the operation of 
certain plans for the general instruction of the poor, pro- 
pounded in a scries of minutes issued by the Committee of 
the Coimcil on Education, under the sanction of Lord 
Lansdowne, the president. The Congregational Dissenters, 
under the guidance of Mr. Edward Baines, of Leeds, were 
almost unanimous, not only in rej^udiating the proposed 
scheme, but in denoimcing all government intervention or 
aid under any circumstances. For a time Montgomery ap- 
peared to entertain similar views, as harmonising Avitli the 
objections to government interference which he had on 
previous occasions urged in his newspaper. The more, 
however, he examined the present proposal, the more was 
he convinced of its impartiality and advantages in a na- 
tional point of view ; and having thus made up his mind, 
he joined his friend Samuel Bailey, Esq., in signing the pe- 
tition from Sheffield in favor of the government scheme of 
education, in opposition to one which had been adopted at 
a public meeting against the measure, and to which he was 
urgently solicited to affix his name." 



VISIT TO WATH. 367 

Mr. Holland, speaking of the odd style of praise be- 
stowed upon an Independent minister of the city, by one 
of his parishioners : " Our parson," said the man, " is a 
devil for preaching." "It is cm-ious," remarked Mont- 
gomery, " to see how fond certain profane talkers are of 
referring to the prince of darkness as a model of excel- 
lence. I recollect dining a few years since, at Derby, with 
a gentleman, who told me that he had played at cribbage 
all night in the coach. I replied, innocently enough, as I 
thought, ' I suppose, sir, you cannot sleep while travelling ?' 
' Oh, yes ! ' was the promj^t rejjly, ' I sleep like the devil.' 
It occurred to me, at the time, to compose an essay on this 
theme, referring particularly to those arts and employments 
in which, it may be presumed, that he who was a liar and 
a murderer from the beginning, is, indeed, a master-Avork- 
man. I wrote only one passage, in which I described the 
devil's dream at the close of one of his busiest days, such 
as that of the battle of Waterloo. The subject was thrill- 
ing, but not pleasing ; " a little too devilish, perhaps. 

July, At the solicitation of, and in company with Mr. 
Holland, the poet visited Wath, his first stopping place 
after his flight from Mirfield. The railway carried them 
to within three miles of the village, to which they had a 
pleasant walk between shady hedges blooming with the 
flowers of Long Time .Ago. 

" We presently passed," says the friend, fondly treasur- 
ing every incident of the day, " the house where Mont- 
gomery used to visit Brameld, the village bookseller ; and 
then Swinton Church, in Avhich," he said, " he once ad- 
dressed a congregation, including some members of the 
Wentworth House. You will readily believe that my fancy 
suggested — though I did not mention it — the contrast 
between the condition of the runaway boy at Wath feel- 



368 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

ing his "way to the metropolis, and that of the eloquent 
Christian poet — and layman — addressing a large audience 
in this church, in behalf of missionary enterprise, in the 
presence of Earl FitzwilHam ! 

" After walking a Httle longer, we came in sight of the 
' Queen of Villages ; ' the plain, but not inelegant spire of 
the church, the large hall, the very handsome "Wesleyan 
chapel, and about a dozen good houses, forming, with the 
great number of intermingled orchard and other trees, 
with some beautiful scenery in the rich valley of the 
Dearne, a very pleasing picture. A few minutes more, 
and we were in Wath ; — Montgomery, after an interval 
of forty years, once more perambulating a village, where, 
as he said, at the time of his residence, ' there was not one 
shabby house, nor hardly an indigent family : ' adding, ' I 
recollect, indeed, there was one pauper died during the 
overseership of my old master, Hunt, who had a passing- 
bell rung for him, which, I dare say, is not done even here 
now-a-days.' As we sauntered along the street our friend 
mentioned the names of many jjersons who occupied the 
houses on either hand, half a century before ; till coming 
to the good, plain gray-stone building, which you well 
enough remember — ' and this,' said he, ' was our house, 
the second window over the door there being that of my 
bed-room.' We entered, and found the tenant very court- 
eous and ready to show us over the premises. We next 
proceeded to the house of the parish clerk to obtain access 
to the church and grave-ground, where the action of the 
poet's Vigil of St. Mark is laid : 

" ' That silent, solemn, simple spot. 
The mouldering realm of peace, 
Where human passions are forgot, 
Where human folUes cease.' 



REMINISCENCES OF YOUTH. 309 

" On my naming to the sub-clerical functionary that my 
companion was Mr. Montgomery, of whom he might per- 
haps have heard, he promptly expressed his respect for 
' the gentleman of that name,' whom he had once known 
as a youth in Mr. Hunt's shop, and of whose subsequent 
fame as a poet he had often heard : but he seemed rather 
to doubt the identity of those characters with the indivi- 
dual before him. All suspicion, however, vanished instantly 
that Montgomery adverted to the more than local celebrity 
of the clerk's father, 'old Billy Evers,' as a fiddler — his 
music having, we believe, occasionally mingled with that 
of Dr. MiUer and his protege Herschel, in those private 
concerts at the adjacent village of Bolton, which are men- 
tioned by Southey in ' The Doctor.' We took a glass of 
wine with old Mr. Johnson, a hale and thriving village 
liquor-merchant, who received us most heartily, but star- 
tled me not a little by a remark to this eifect : ' Mr. Mont- 
gomery, I think you have never been married ; I have only 
this very day been talking to wife about the verses you 
wrote on Hannah Turner ! ' This was like catching a but- 
terfly with a pair of blacksmith's tongs ; and I instantly 
changed the subject of conversation." 

The gentlemen reached home at evening, having had a 
day of more than anticipated enjoyment. The aged poet 
seemed to have renewed his youth : 

" While old enchantments filled his mind 
With scenes and seasons far behind — 
Childhood, its smiles and tears, 
Youth, with its flush of years, 
Its morning clouds, and dewy prime, 
More exquisitely touched by Time. 



370 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" Fancies again are springing, 

Like May-flowers in the vales ; 
While hopes, long lost, are singing 

From thorns, Uke nightingales — 
And kindly spirits stir his blood 
Like vernal airs that curl the flood." 

The sentiment of this exquisite little poem, Youth He- 
neiffecIjWO can readily believe a transcript of his exjierience. 
For we behold, with creejiing age, he found it easy 

" Thus sweetly to surrender 
The present for the past ; 
In sprightly mood, yet tender, 
Life's burden down to cast. 
This is to taste, from stage to stage, 
Youth on the lees refined by age ; 
Like wine well kept and long, 
Heady, nor harsh, nor strong, 
With every annual cup, is quaffed 
A richer, purer, mellower draught." 

A young clergyman, recently come to Shefiield, having 
sent the aged poet a poem of his own, Montgomery, with 
an acknowledgment of its pious sentiment and graceful 
versification, assumes the jDrivilege of age, and candidly 
goes on : "I am prompted to encourage you to proceed 
and prosper, but this I durst not do to the most promising 
and aspiring youth of the age — an age in which almost 
every body that is anybody writes, and almost nobody 
reads poetry. By this I mean that verse, excellent verse, 
is the least marketable of all literary commodities, not one 
volimie in twenty, by its sale, defraying the expense of 
printing and advertising. The only safeguard from abso- 
lute loss is to secure a subscription list from the author's 



LETTER TO THE ROSCOE CLUB. 371 

personal friends sufficient to cover the outfit of the fragile 
bark. There probably never was a time in this country 
when more poetry, even good poetry, was composed by a 
multitude of contemi^oraries, and published in newspapers, 
magazines, and reviews, tfcc, than may now be found every 
day and everywhere. But this is mere scrap-reading^ and 
the volumes from which these precious things are pil- 
fered remain on the author's hands, or lie on the booksel- 
lers' shelves, till they are swept off in the course of nature, 
that is, of trade, by the dealers in waste paper. This 
withering information I have so often had occasion to con- 
vey, that the sight of a manuscript is a terror to me. To 
set you, as well as myself, at liberty, I will here break off 
at once by saying, that no particular reference has been 
made to your experiment in this i:)recarious field of compo- 
sition. I entered upon these statements solely to make you 
understand why I could offer no advice that might serve 
you, if you were disposed to follow, as you honestly and 
honorably might, poetry, as something more than a delight- 
ful occupation of a fine talent that might be turned to the 
benefit and blessing of others beside yourself." 

A number of gentlemen in Liverpool, having formed a 
" Roscoe Club," determined upon holding a grand soiree 
on the evening of the 1st of February. Among other per- 
sons to whom they addressed invitations, was Montgomery, 
who returned the following answer : 

"The Mount, January 29, 1S48. 
" Gentlemen", 

" With my best thanks for the courteous invitation to 
the intended soiree of your members, on Tuesday next, I 
am under the necessity of stating, that I have neither 
health nor strength to avail myself of the privilege. For 



372 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

some time jiast, I have forborne to take that active part, 
which was once my delight, in the aflairs of our local in- 
stitutions, and have consequently declined occasional over- 
tures to be a sharer in similar engagements elsewhere. 
When ' the grasshopper is a burden,' enjoyments, not less 
than labors, become too stimulating and exhausting to an 
enfeebled frame and discouraged mind, for such are mine — 
the one never vigorous, and the other never sanguine — 
though from boyhood, sufficiently aspiring to long for, and 
aim at, some distinction among those who were themselves 
distinguished in poetry and criticism, the arts which I loved 
most. 

" Forty years ago, when I was timidly creejoing out of 
obscurity, as an unknown and unpatronised adventurer, 
both in verse and prose, Mr. Roscoe spontaneously marked 
me ; and, in several communications through the post, gave 
me both counsels and consolations, which were jieculiarly 
seasonable, when I lay under the ban of the Edinburgh 
reviewers, and the English journalists seemed afraid to say 
a good word for an excommunicated intruder ' on the 
lower slopes of Parnassus.' Mr. Roscoe's favorable senti- 
ments, precious in themselves, were doubly so as 2:)ledges to 
my hopes — that compositions which such a man com- 
mended would, to some extent, ' fit audience find, though 
few,' in other quarters where judgment was not less free, 
though less arbitrary (in the hard sense of the word), 
than bcfoj-e a court of infxllible inquisitors, whose motto 
was, ' Judex damnatur cum nocens ahsolvitur,'' but which 
ought to have been, ' Lasciate ogni speranza^ vol c/i' 
intrate? 

" I am glad of the oj^portunity of acknowledging my 
early obligation to your amiable and eminent fellow-citizen, 
and especially to avail myself of this opportunity, because 



EULOGY OF no SCOE. 373 

it is one in a thousand, when his townspeople of a second 
and third generation, from that Avith Avhich he was contem- 
porary, have determined to raise a monument worthy of 
themselves, because worthy of hun, to commemorate his 
services and their gratitude, not in perishable marble or 
brass, but in a living, breathing, and intellectual form, 
which ought never to die, but perpetuate its existence 
through an endless succession of its members, enjoying, 
diffusing, and bequeathing to Liverpool, while it lasts, the 
blessings which accrued to its inhabitants by the residence 
among them of one who, by importing into its harbor the 
treasures of Tuscan literature, made them so current 
through the whole island, that while he ruled the public 
taste by the revival of their glories in the records of their 
deeds, the spirits of the Medici seemed to exercise sove- 
reignty on the banks of the Mersey, as formerly on those 
of the Arno, and Liverpool became the Florence of 
Britain, from whence the commei'ce of elegant literature 
was carried wherever the English and Italian languages 
were understood. 

" The names of few of our illustrious poets and men of 
letters are distinctly associated with the names of the 
places where they were born, or in which they flourished ; 
the metropolis most frequently having been the rendezvous 
and the market for books and their authors. Your great 
townsman so exalted the provincial press, that its character 
tlienceforward has never been so disparaged as formerly 
(perhaps) it deserved to be, for the meanness of its issues, 
and the poverty of its performances. Bristol and Liver- 
pool contemporaneously redeemed and established their 
credit so signally, that with the former the names of Words- 
worth, and Southey, and Coleridge, are not yet divorced 

from the city of their first appearance, and lost in the un- 
32 



374 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

meaning form of " lake poets," while that of Roscoe is so 
intimately linked with Liverpool, that he cannot be men- 
tioned, or remembered even without the honorable distinc- 
tion to himself and his residence, '■ Moscoe of Lwerpooll'' 
The collocation here is unexceptionable and unambiguous. 
As ' Roscoe,' then, cannot be divided from ' Liverpool,' let 
' Liverjiool ' never be unmindful of her ' Roscoe,' or cease 
to benefit by the influence and the effects of his long and 
useful connection with it in the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries. 

" These are crude remarks, but accept them, as they have 
come from my heart through my pen, for I have not time 
to revise them." 

Another breach was now made in the narrowing circle 
of Montgomery's old friends and friendships in the death 
of Samuel Roberts, Esq., at his residence. Park Grange, 
near Shefiield, in the 86th year of his age. This was July 
24th, 1848. 

" Three of my fellow-pilgrims have now finished their 
course, and left me the last of four friends," he says, 
mournfully; — an intimacy "born to do benefits," hav- 
ing none of the " delirious blood and wicked spells " of 
the wine bottle with its long train of remorseful mem- 
mories. 

Having written a short obituary of him, " I could not 
go into any detail of my friend's course of life," he 
Avrites to Mi-. Holland ; " he Avas one of whom little 
could not be said, if anything were attempted. Four- 
and-twenty years ago, towards the close of Tlic Pelican 
Island^ I said, 

" The world grows darker, lonelier, and more silent, 
As I cro down into the vale of tears. 



THE LOSS OF FRIENDS. 375 

" You -will understand this better twenty and four years 
hence, and also find out that there is something to a livino- 
man darker than darkness, more lonely than loneliness, 
more silent than silence. What is that ? The space m 
our eye, our ear, and our mind, which the jDresence of a 
friend once filled, and Avhich imagination itself cannot now 
fill. Infinite space, invisible, inaudible, dimensionless, is 
not more inajiprehensible than that remembered range in 
which, to us, he lived, moved, and had a being. 'Absent 
from the body,' is a far diSerent separation from that 
which the earth's diameter interposes between two breath- 
ing conscious beings, each iwesent with himself and con- 
temporary with the other, but as utterly beyond personal 
communication as the living with the dead, or the dwellers 
in the dust, each resting in his bed, side by side. I must 
not rhapsodize any more. We two yet can meet and 
part ; and how much of life's acting and sufiering these 
two monosyllables comprehend ! I have only another to 
add ; and that is that I am, very sincerely, your Friend.'''' 

On the 29th Mr. Roberts was interred at Church- Anston. 
Montgomery attended the funeral — a sincere as well as a 
ceremonial mourner ; his feelings, after reaching home, be- 
ing embodied in the following lines : 

" We will remember thee in love : 

Thy race is run — thy work is done ; 
Now rest in peace, 

Where sin, and toil, and suffering cease ; 
Meanwhile, in hope to meet above, 
When these with us no more sliall be, 
In love we will remember thee." 



376 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

On opening the will of the deceased, although it did not 
comprise any formal testamentary bequest to any of his 
friends, it contained a pencilled memorandum to the effect, 
that the executor (Samuel Roberts, Jun.) should give some 
memento of his late father's esteem to the poet : " a wish, 
which we happen to know," says Mr. Holland, " was not 
less cheerfully than promptly and Uberally realized by a 
present of one hundred guineas." 



CHAPTER XX. 

EXTINCTION OF THE IRIS — LIFE OF KEATS — SHELLEY — MISSIONART 
JUBILEE — TRACT SOCIETY JUBILEE — SICKNESS — POEMS — RECOVERY 
— VISIT TO FULNECK — CELEBRATION OF IIIS BIRTII-DAY — TREE- 
PLANTING AT THE MOUNT — VISIT TO BUXTON. 

In September, 1848, the Iris, wliicli Montgomery estab- 
lished fifty-four years before, and which at one period was 
the only newspaper in Sheffield, closed its existence. A few 
weeks later, the Sheffield Mercury, with which Mr. Holland 
had been connected for fifteen years, merged itself into a 
new sheet, and thus an interesting link between the old 
editor and the younger, his future biographer, was broken, 

" Every Saturday afternoon," Mr. Holland tells us, " he 
took care to be found in his room at the Music Hall, be- 
cause at 4 o'clock, to a minute, the beloved and venerable 
bard uniformly made his aj^pearance, gliding down the pas- 
sage as quietly as a ghost ; and after sitting and chatting 
for half an hour, carried off" with him the newspaper." 

" And so this is the last Sheffield Mercury we are to 
have, and you are no longer Mr. Editor," said Mont- 
gomery, on his last visit to this old haunt ; " I confess I am 
sorry on every account." 

" So the ' march of intellect ' leaves behind first one and 
then another, in succession," answered his friend ; " its 
hard hoof, which, as you once intimated, trampled on you 



378 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

SO sternly nearly thirty years ago, has now trodden me 
down." 

" You must come up to The Mount, and let us talk over 
these momentous changes ; " an invitation which needed 
no renewal, for Mr. Holland's society and friendship now 
formed almost a daily part of Montgomery's social enjoy- 
ment. 

A day or two after, we find him at The Mount, bringing 
the Life of Keats by Milnes, for the j^oet's jicrusal. 

" Glad to see it," answered Montgomery, " though I 
feel loth just now to be drawn away from a very interest- 
ing subject — the journal of the founder of the Quakers, 
an extraordinary book, which I wonder I never read before. 
I can understand the religion of George Fox better than 
the poetry of Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Members 
of the Society of Friends — to their honor be it spoken 
— were among the earliest advocates for the emancipation 
of slaves." 

" Yes," answered Mr. Holland, " but it is curious to per- 
ceive that, even among tJiem, the principle, in its practical 
application at least, was one of growth ; for you will find 
George Fox, on his visit to the West Indies, in 1671, tell- 
ing the planters that, with respect to their ' negroes or 
blacks, they should endeavor to train them up in the fear 
of God ; as well them that were bought with their money, 
as them that were born in their families, that all might 
come to the knowledge of the Lord. I desired them also,' 
he adds, ' that they would cause their overseers to deal 
mildly and gently with their negroes, and not use cruelty 
towards them, as the manner of some hath been, and is ; 
and that after certain years of servitude they would make 
them free.' I do not know how the thing strikes yon, but 
to me it appears that a good deal of the reproach which, 



THE USE OF A DEVIL. 379 

in connection with current reports of the growth and 
atrocities of the slave trade as now clandestinely carried 
on, we so constantly find to be cast upon the party who 
paid the twenty millions of British money for emancipation, 
originated with those who are at best but half-hearted abo- 
litionists themselves." 

" I am afraid there is too much truth in your remark," 
rejoined Montgomery. " One does not always catch a 
new idea at a public meeting ; but there was to me some- 
thing of novelty in an anecdote told by one of the speakers 
at the Wesleyan Missionary Meeting on Monday night : — 
Two British sailors were engaged in assisting at the de- 
barkation of a cargo of negroes from a cajjtured slaver ; 
on seeing the shocking condition of the poor creatures as 
they were brought np, and the sinister looks of the captain, 
who was thus disai^pointed of his prey — ' Jack,' exclaimed 
one of the sailors to his companion, ' the devil will be sure 
to have that fellow.' ' Dost thou really think so ? ' was the 
reply of his shipmate. ' To be sure he will ; or else what's 
the use of having a devil ? ' This story," proceeded Mont- 
gomery, " reminded me of one which I heard soon after I 
came to Sheffield ; there appeared in some of the meetings 
of the Jacobins, as they were at that time called, an elderly 
man of the name of Gibbs ; he was regarded, and no 
doubt correctly, by Mr. Gales and othei's, as a Government 
spy, for he had played that part in America during the 
"War of Independence. Franklin, who knew him, is said 
to have exclaimed, ' If God had not made a hell, he ought 
to make one for the punishment of such miscreants as 
Gibbs ! ' This observation savors somewhat of profanity ; 
but it is remarkable that the philosophic statesman and 
the rude sailor were alike horrified at atrocities, for which 
they saw no competent retribution hi this world." 



380 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Having read Keats's life, brought liim by his friend, 
he confessed it a work of considerable elegance and a 
labor of love, but fails in being convinced that Keats, 
had he lived would ever have proved himself a great 
l^oet. 

" It is very j^robable," he said, " that if, instead of falling 
early and entirely into the so-called ' Cockney-school,' ad- 
mirably described by Mr. Milnes, Keats had been thrown 
among the ' Lakists,' the result might have been every way 
more favorable ; for the ' worship of Nature,' however re- 
mote from the sjiirit of Christianity, is at least a thousand- 
fold more allied to the sympathies of universal humanity, 
than any reflex image, however brilliant, which modern in- 
genuity can exhibit of the old mythologies of Greece and 
Home. The sonnets are to me the green spots in the 
sparkling but arid poetry of Keats." 

At the annual meeting of the Church Missionary Society, 
held in Exeter Hall on the 2d of May this year, it was re- 
solved to commemorate the jubilee of that institution in all 
its departments throughout the world. " Montgomery," 
Mr. Holland tells us, " was requested by Mr. Bickersteth 
to compose a hymn for the occasion ; with this request the 
poet gladly complied, and in due course this composition, 
commencing, " The King of Glory we i^roclaim," was not 
only printed and circulated in its original form, wherever 
the mother-tongue of the Church of England found an ut- 
terance in her services, but it was translated also into 
Tamul, for the use of the native converts in Tinnevelly, 
Madras, and Ceylon." This high festival was appropriately 
held on the first of November, a day which the Church has 
dedicated to the commemoration of the " one communion 
and fellowship " in which all the members of Christ's mys- 
tical body are knit together ; and the subject is adverted 



CHURCH MISSIONARY JUBILEE. 381 

to liere somewhat in detail by his loving friend Holland, 
" because," as he says, " Montgomery is, perhajjs, the only 
Christian poet who had ever the high distinction of bemg 
called upon by the Church of Christ to compose, and by 
the great Head of that Church permitted to take part in 
singing, a strain which might literally be said to have sur- 
rounded the earth with one unrolled melody, carried on 
simultaneously with an entire ' circuit of the sun.' " This 
holy concord of evangehcal churchmen in Great Britain, 
with their brethren in the Lord scattered throughout " all 
nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues," in the 
same intercessory and eucharistical strains, is thus antici- 
pated in one of the tracts published at the time : 

" Before the auspicious day dawns upon us, the sun will 
have risen in the far East, and shone upon some even in 
Chma, the latest of the missions of the Society, where little 
companies will be gathered together in the name of the 
Lord. India and Ceylon will next swell the chorus with 
their numerous bands of native Christians, all taught to 
sing the same new song, though in various tongues (the 
Bengalee, Hindoo, Teloogoo, Tamul, Singhalese, Malayalim, 
Mahratta) — East Africa, with its as yet lisping babes in 
Christ : — Egypt, Smyrna, and Syria, the scanty representa- 
tives of the ancient Arabic and Greek tongues — the newly 
discovered tribes of West Africa at Abbeokouta will swell 
the strains. And then the full concert of voices from the 
elder brethren of Great Britain, throughout the various 
Associations of our land — not on this day meeting as al- 
moners to commiserate the destitute, but as fehow-heliDers 
of the joy of brethren in the Lord — Uke the 'joyful 
mother' with her children — grown up to a spiritual equa- 
lity, and to an intelligent participation in divine worshij?. 
Then, as the sun completes his circuit, the hearty voices of 



382 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

liberated Africans, made 'free indeed' by the early and 
tearful labor's of this Society — soon to be resjionded to 
across the wide Atlantic by their kindred race, the emanci- 
pated laborers of the West Indies, and from the free wan- 
derers of North-West America. Then, when the shades 
of evening have closed the lips of the eastern tribes, ere 
yet the song has died away from the lips of the mother 
Churches of Great Britain, the New Zealander will pro- 
long the nniversal anthem with the manly but softened 
tones of that noble race. Thus for a double day — ' from 
the going forth of the sun from the end of the heaven, and 
his circuit unto the ends of it ' — for twenty-four hours, the 
Jubilee notes will be prolonged." * 

"The poet had only just closed his part in the theme of 
thanksgiving for the mercies which had marked the first 
fifty years' proceedings of the Church Missionary Associa- 
tions," his biographer goes on to say, " when he was called 
upon, and consented to renew the strain on the recurrence 
of a similar event in the history of a kindred institution — 
the Religious Tract Society. At the jubilee festival of this 
' Parent of the Bible Society,' which was held at Queen 
street Chapel, Sheffield, November 13, Montgomery pre- 
sided ; and, although he made no formal speech, he read a 
copy of original verses, the appropriateness of which to the 
occasion will be obvious from the following extract, which 
will also show that, however the venerable poet might mis- 
trust his lips or his memory in the advocacy of a cause 
that had never lacked his active support throughout the 
whole half century of its existence, his right hand had 
lost none of its cunning in embodying a fine thought in 
fitting rhyme : 

* Jubileo Tracts, Xo. 1, p. 9. 



TRACT SOCIETY JUBILEE. 383 

" ' The sunbeani3, infinitely small, 
In numbers numberless, 
Eeveal, pervade, illumine all 
Nature's void wilderness. 

" ' But, meeting worlds upon their way, 
Wrapt in primeval night, 
In language without sound, they say 
To each — God sends you light. 

"'Anon, with beauty, life, and love, 
Those wandering planets glow, 
And shine themselves as stars above, 
On gazers from below. 

" ' Oh ! could the first archangel's eye 
In everlasting space. 
Through all the mazes of the sky 
A single sunbeam trace I 

" ' He might behold that lovely one 
Its destiny fulfill, 
As punctual as the parent sun 
Performs its Maker's will. 

" ' The Sun of Kighteousness, with rays 
Of uncreated light. 
His power and glory thus displays 
Through nature's darkest night 

" ' Rays from that Sun of Righteousness 
Our humble missiles dart ; 
Mighty at once to wound and bless, 
To break and bind the heart. 

" ' And could the first archangel's sight 
The least of these pursue. 
He might record — in its brief flight, 
Each had a work to do.' " 



aS4 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

As a contrast between the operations of the Tract So- 
ciety in 1798 and 1848, Montgomery pointed with much 
interest to what might, without impropriety, be called a 
Polyrjlott tract, circulated in Sheffield at the latter date ; 
it was in English, French, German, Italian, Welsh, and 
native Irish ! 

The winter of 1849 battered the decaying tabernacle of 
the aged poet. Fever-turns confined him to his bed, a 
slight paralysis affected one of his arms, and a severe in- 
flammation attacked one of his eyes. His friends became 
alarmed; and Miss Gales wrote to his brother Robert. 
The tidings brought to his bedside a favorite niece, one 
Betsey Montgomery, the beautiful and blooming girl who 
charmed her uncle on her first visit to Sheffield, twenty- 
eight years before, now Mrs. Foster, a gentle and sympa- 
thizing matron, better qualified perhaps to be the nurse 
and comfort of her aged relative. 

Mr. Holland proves the attentive friend, ever at The 
Mount, answering letters, reading favorite authors, or re- 
hearsing the news of the day. 

" He placed in my hands," he tells us of one of their in- 
terviews, " transcripts of a portion of his original Hymns, 
several of which, he said, I should find quite new to me. 
He wished me to read aloud the first line of each composi- 
tion ; and, as I did so, he not only gave me a little history 
of the origin of most of them, but indicated such as he 
thought I had not seen before. Several of the latter I 
read through ; but witnessing the strong emotions which 
they excited in the poet's mind, and wishing also to avoid 
participation in such a scene of trying sympathy, I apolo- 
gized and desisted. ' Read on,' said he, ' I am glad to hear 
you ; the words recall the feelings which first suggested 
them, and it is good for me to feel affected and humbled 



"AT HOME IN HEAVEN." 385 

by the terms in which I have endeavored to provide for 
the expression of similar rehgious exi^erience in others. As 
all my hymns embody some portions of the history of the 
joys or sorrows, the hopes and the fears of this poor heart, 
so I cannot doubt that they will be found an acceptable 
vehicle of expression of the experience of many of my 
fellow-creatures who may be similarly exercised during the 
pilgrimage of their Christian life.' " 

We can hardly forgive Mr. Holland for not eliciting and 
recording the biographical antecedents which gave them 
birth, for are they not experiences of 

" the truths, for whose sweet sake 

"We to ourselves and to our God are dear ? " 

None of his poems more choicely embodies his feelings 
at this time than At Home in Heaven, glimpses of which 
break on the believer's eye as " life's little day draws 
nearer to its close," and " that evening-time when it shall 
be light " dawns upon his soul : 

" Here in the body pent, 
Absent from Him I roam, 
Tet nightly pitch my moving tent 
A day's march nearer home. 

" My Father's house on high — 
Home of my soul — how near, 
At times, to Faith's foreseeing eye 
The golden gates appear I 

" Ah ! then my spirit faints 
To reach the land I love, 
The bright inheritance of saints, 

Jerusalem above. 
33 



386 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" Yet clouds will intervene, 
And all my prospect flies ; 
Like Noah's dove, I flit between 
Eough seas and stormy skies. 

" Anon the clouds disperse. 

The winds and waters cease, 
"While sweetly o'er my gladdened heart 
Expands the bow of peace." 

" I have received," he once said, " directly and indirectly 
more testimonials of approbation in reference to those 
verses than perhaps any other which I have written of the 
same class, M'ith the exception of those on Prayer." 

The poem commences " For ever with the Lord," and 
ends with 

" That resurrection- word I 
That shout of victory ! 
Once more — ' For ever with the Lord !' 
Amen, so let it be." 

We have only extracted the part of a beautiful whole. 

Many days' march yet to the heavenly home. Heahng 
came and Montgomery was again able to leave his room, 
and take his old seat at the table and the fire-side. 

" How grateful after an interval of sickness is the return 
to common food," he exclaimed. 

" Nor is the least appropriate condiment," rejoined a 
friend, " ' a cheerful heart,' as the jioet says, ' that tastes 
those gifts with joy.' " 

"If Addison had written nothing but those two lines," 
said Montgomery, " they ought to be sufficient to transmit 



VISIT TO FULNECK. 387 

his name to posterity ; they admirably express a striking 
sentiment which, I believe, occurs nowhere else in the 
whole range of our iDoi:)ular hymnology, and which is, per- 
haps, but rarely ap23reciated as it deserves to be by many 
persons who are very familiar with the poem from which 
your quotation is derived." 

After three months' imprisonment within doors, he again 
reappeared in the streets — but " how faded and infirm !" 
said the passers by. 

" Early m the month of April," — we extract from his 
English biography, — "he was sufficiently recovered to make 
a visit to Fulneck, where he enjoyed, with his brethren, those 
solemnities which mark the festival of Easter in the Mora- 
vian communities, especially the ' Love Feast,' which is held 
on what they call the ' great Sabbath,' or Saturday, which 
occurs between the days on which all the Western churches 
commemorate the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ. 
Calling on Mr. Holland immediately after his return to 
Sheffield, the poet was evidently still under the peculiar in- 
fluence of those feelings which he had experienced during 
his brief but hallowed intercourse with Alma Mater / the 
music, the singing, the prayers and the addresses of the oc- 
casion, strongly recalling similar exercises of the paschal 
season in the days of his childhood and youth." 

One fine morning in May, Mr. Law, the curator of the 
Sheffield Botanical Gardens, happening to meet Montgom- 
ery and Miss Gales walking in those beautiful grounds, 
when no other company were present, asked the poet to 
gratify him by plantmg an oak. The request was at once 
complied with. He afterwards, at the request of the com- 
mittee, planted two Chilian pmes at the head of the 
principal walk, and immediately in front of the conser- 
vatory. 



388 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY, 

His '78th year also, a few months afterwards, was inaug- 
urated by a tree-planting ; Mrs. Mitchell, one of the resi- 
dents of The Mount, having gracefully got up a little f6te 
champetre on his birth-day, " that his name might live on 
The Mount long after he becanie a ' Tree of Life at God's 
right hand.' " 

On a bright Saturday afternoon, the little party escorted 
him from his own door to the centre of the lawn, where the 
gardener gave him a young beech-sai^ling, which, with Mrs. 
Mitchell's help, he put into the soil. " I thank you, my dear 
sir ! may you see many winters' snow upon its naked 
branches, and many spring renewals of its beautiful 
foliage." 

" If all that is done under the sun this day," said the 
aged man, " were to be recorded in a book, this transaction 
would appear very insignificant, but the planting of a tree 
in the midst of our little Avorld of The Mount is an event 
of more than every day importance to us, assembling us to 
witness the introduction of a new object to our eye, a new 
companion of our walks within this jDleasant enclosure, and 
a new association of ideas on which memory may hereafter 
sometimes delight to dwell. 

" When a child is born," he continued more gravely, 
" there is only one thing that can be surely foretold con- 
cerning its destiny — that sooner or later it wiU die. Be- 
tween the cradle and the grave there arise numberless 
changes and contingencies, kept hidden in the covmcils of 
God, and never by searching to be known, till their gradual 
development — their mysteries are manifestly revealed, and. 
their purposes understood. When a tree springs out of the 
ground, something different may be certified ; and here I 
might take up my parable, and proj^hesy concerning this 
which we have seen planted to-day, that from henceforth, 



CELEBRATION OF HIS BIRTH-DAY, 389 

in the ordinary dispensation of Providence, it may be ex- 
pected to rise to maturity, and there continue till, if 
spared by the axe and the storm, it has fulfilled every 
purpose for which it was created, and sustained through 
its appointed existence. And how will it do this ? Simply 
by never losing a moment of time, and never misspending 
one, 

" Time is lost by not occupying it ; and misspent by not 
occuj^ying it well. O how different a being in your pre- 
sence had the utterer of these words been, if at this hour it 
could have been said of him, through seventy-seven years of 
pilgrimage on earth (to borrow the language of an inspired 
projihet), 'As the days of a tree only have been his days,* 
not in number only, but in the performance of duties ! 
Far otherwise, however, I must testify of myself. Time is 
lost in not employing it, and misspent in employing it ill. 
Milhons of moments have I lost by idleness, and millions 
more have I misspent, if not doing positive evil (though no 
small portion may be charged to that account), misspent in 
not doing that which alone is good iu the sight of God. It 
needs no affectation of humility to make this confession 
before my friends around me on this peculiar occasion, 
when they are delighting to do me honor, which I can only 
return, as I do, with gratitude. I trust I have not gone 
beyond the license of the occasion so jDointedly personal : 
nor will it be out of place or out of season, if I express 
my heart's desire and prayer, that we may henceforth, by 
the grace of God, which alone can enable us, — make the 
tree thus planted an example and an argument, that what 
the tree unconsciously, yet unvaryingly, does, we may con- 
scientiously and heartily do at all times, and under all cir- 
cumstances ; so shall God, even our own God, give us his 

blessing, and make us blessings to one another in our gen- 
33* 



390 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

eration ; so may we all be trees of righteousness — trees of 
his own planting here ; and in his Paradise above undying 
trees of life, by the river of life flowing out of the throne 
of God and the Lamb." 

" The brightness of the day," says one of the party, "the 
general beauty of the landscape — the age and venerable 
aspect of the speaker — the attention of the grouj) which 
surrounded him — a thousand associations of the past in 
his history — the light in which imagination beheld the 
after-interest of the tree just planted, conspired to give a 
peculiar charm to the foregoing expressions. 

" At the close of the address the comj)any were invited 
by Mr. Mitchell to return to his house, and drink a glass of 
wine in honor of the occasion. Here, again, they found 
that the ingenuity of their hostess had provided an api^ro- 
priate memento of the day for the children present, in the 
shape of a dozen Testaments, each appropriately inscribed, 
and presented by the hand of Montgomery, and each hav- 
ing on its first leaf the following lines : 

" Behold the book whose leaves display 
Jesus, the Life, the Truth, the Way. 
Read it with diligence and prayer : 
Seek it and you will find him there. 

"J. M." 

The next day he gave Mrs. Mitchell the following lines, 
written on an embossed card : 

" Live long, live well, fair Beechen Tree ! 
And oh ! that I might live like thee, 
Never to lose one moment more, 
As millions I have lost before ; 



VISIT TO BUXTON. 391 

Nor e'er misspend another lent, 
As millions past have been misspent; 
Each in our place would then fulfill 
Our Maker and our Master's will. 

" Moments to ages train a tree ; 
To man, they bring eternity. 
Though as the tree falls, so it lies, 
Man ends not thus ; unless he rise, 
His fall is final — spirit never dies." 

As pilgrims wei'e pointed to the hoary head of the 
Penshurst Oak, or sat reverently beneath the "pensile 
boughs " of Pope's Willow, or wrought " traps " from 
Shakespeare's immortal Mulberry, so might travellers have 
sought this Beech tree on The Mount, to invoke the holy 
fervors of the Bard of Sheffield — but for the ruthless hand 
of mischief, which a few months later destroyed many an 
arboral ornament of the lawn, and the Beechen Tree among 
the rest. 

An August flitting to Buxton. Miss Gales accompanies 
him. 

" Time takes so much killing," he playfully remarks to a 
correspondent, a few days after his arrival, in excuse for 
not having written earUer, " when you have nothing else to 
do with him, that there seems no end of the work, and in- 
deed there is none ; for iti doing nothing^ as there is no 
progress, there can be no end ; while in doing everything 
you cannot escape from a finality in a world where all that 
is is mortal, and that only which is not is interminable." 

After jotting down the minor interests of the journey 
for his friend's perusal, he continues : 

" On Monday, however, I did seriously sit down to the 
duty, but was interrupted by being carried off in Mr. Black- 



392 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

well's carriage iu the forenoon, in one direction among the 
mountains, and in the afternoon, on a '•visit of mercy,'' on 
behalf of our kind-hearted neighhor, Mrs, Mitchell, who 
was here a few weeks ago, to the cottage of a poor family ; 
that errand Miss G. and I performed on foot ; and if you 
have an opportunity of calling on Mrs, M,, next door to 
us, at The Mount, please to tell her that we dehvered her 
packet to the poor mother, saw her and her baby (the 
latter a very weakly little thing, which she nurses most 
tenderly) and her manned husband, Avho is apparently re- 
covering, though slowly, from his aAA'ful accident. How 
ought such as I to be humbled at the sight of real poverty 
and severe suffering borne with quiet, and patience, and 
resignation to the will of the Lord, even where they little 
understand his loving kindness, from the neglect of those 
who ought to be their teachers and exemj)lars. However, 
in all the dark places of this land, whatever may be said of 
Methodists or Methodism, of Fly-Sheets and their authors, 
it is a glorious thing to say of that people, that, go where- 
ever you will, through the length and breadth of this whole 
land (of England, at least), you can hardly get out of the 
sound of the gospel from Wesleyan lijys. In this I do re- 
joice, and will rejoice ; and may their sound continue to go 
forth to the ends of the earth, speaking in all the languages 
under heaven ! I must end here. Miss Gales sends kind 
regards, and believe me ever truly." 

A fortnight's abandonment to the social varieties of Bux- 
ton, and a few days at dear Fulneck, renovated the elderly 
pair, and they returned to Sheffield early in Sei^tember 
to receive the Archbishop of York, who had engaged to 
preach a sermon in behalf of the General Infirmary, a 
charity in which the poet was strongly interested. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CONGREGATIOXAt. DXION — EBENEZER ELLIOTT — MORAVIAN HYMK-BOOK 

— LETTER TO MR. LATROBE — NEW EDITION OF HIS WORKS — LETTER 
FROM LUCY AIKIN — TENNYSON — THE DEAKIN CHARITY — AXTI- 
CATHOLIC MEETING — CRYSTAL PALACE — BIRTH-DAY PRESENTS — 
MONTGOMERY MEDAL — MEMORIAL TREES — VISIT TO THE SCHOOL OP 
DESIGN — LECTURE BEFORE THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SO- 
CIETY — MEETING OF THE METHODIST CONFERENCE — GRAY'^'S POETRY 

— "original HYMNS " FROM LUCY AIKIN — AUTUMN TRAIT — AT HIS 
POST TO THE LAST — DEATH — FUNERAL — CONCLUSION. 

Although now exceedingly averse to making his ap- 
pearance in public, Montgomery consented to dine with 
the ministers of " The Congregational Union," assembled 
at Sheffield, October, 1849. In doing this, he not only 
yielded to the imj)ortunity of old friends, who were anx- 
ious to gratify their younger brethren by even a brief in- 
terview with one who had taken so active a part with their 
fathers in the formation and advancement of their religious 
institutions, but, by occupying a place at the right hand of 
the Rev. President of the meeting, testified his unabated 
oneness of spirit with this section of the Church of Christ. 
His health being proposed from the chair, he was led to 
make a short speech, in which he adverted to his first 
knowledge of the meetings and worshii? of the Indejiend- 
ents, by casually attending, when a youth, and while resid- 
ing at Wath, the cottage-preaching of ti man whose name 



394 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

had passed into the history of that revival of religion 
begun by the Methodists, namely, the Rev. Mr. Graves, 
one of six students who had previously been expeUed 
from the University of Oxford for " singing, praying, and 
exjDounding the Scriptures." He mentioned also, as in- 
deed he had done on previous occasions, that one of the 
very first persons whose friendship he enjoyed, after he 
came to reside at Shefiield, was a man who held no second 
place among Congregational theologians, — the Rev. John 
Pye Smith, D. D. " This kind friend," added the speaker, 
with much ndivete and feeling, and amid the reiterated 
cheers of his audience, " when on a certain occasion, I had 
to leave Shefiield for six months, stepped into my place, 
and looked after my afiairs : we were, indeed, alike young 
and inexperienced politicians, committing many mistakes, 
and getting into some scrapes, which the possession of 
older and colder heads might probably have enabled us 
to avoid." 

Ebenezer Elliott, the " Corn-Law Rhymer," died on the 
1st of December, and the publisher of the Shefiield Inde- 
pendent, while preparing a memoir of the poet for that 
paper, wrote to Montgomery to ask if he could furnish any 
particulars ; the following was his reply : 

"The Mount, December 6, 1849. 
"Dear Sir, 

" I am sorry that I cannot serve you with any infor- 
mation respecting the late Mr. Ebenezer Elliott, of whose 
decease I was not aware till I received your letter. I do 
not remember ever having been for an hour in his com- 
pany. Our occasional meetings were few, and short, and 
far between, though he Avas known and admired by me as 
a poet before the world would either know or honor him 



TRIBUTE TO ELLIOTT. 395 

as such. He published several small volumes at mtervals, 
the manuscripts of which (mostly) he had confidentially 
submitted to me; and they had my best encouragement 
on the ground of their merit ; but not one of these could 
command public attention, till he broke out in the ' Corn- 
Law Rhymes,' as Waller said of Denham, ' Hke the Irish 
Rebellion, ybr^y thousand strong^ when nobody thought 
of such a thing.' Then, indeed, he compelled both aston- 
ishment and commendation from all manner of critics — 
Whig, Tory, and Radical — reviewers vying with each 
other who should most magnanimously extol the talents 
which they had either not discovered or had superciliously 
overlooked, till, for their own credit, they could no longer 
hold their peace, or affect to desjiise what they had not had 
heart to acknowledge when their countenance would have 
done service to the struggling author. A few of his smaller 
pieces did find their way into the Iris^ but I believe these 
were all republished by himself in his succeeding miscarry- 
ing volumes. I, however, am quite willing to hazard any 
critical credit by avowing my persuasion that, in origin- 
ahty, power, and even beauty — when he chose to be 
beautiful — he might have measured heads beside Byron 
in tremendous energy, — Crabbe, in graphic description, 
and Coleridge, in effusions of domestic tenderness ; while 
in intense sympathy with the poor, in whatever he deemed 
their wrongs or their sufferings, he excelled them all, and 
perhaps everybody else among his contemporaries in prose 
or verse. He was, in a transcendental sense, the Poet of 
the Poor^ whom, if not always ' wisely ^^ I at least dare not 
say he loved ' too loelV His personal character, his for- 
tunes, and his genius would require, and they deserve, a 
full investigation, as furnishing an extraordinary study of 
human nature." 



396 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

A book was published this year which had cost our poet 
no Httle study and solicitude — a revised edition of the 
Moravian Hymn Book. 

As early as 1835, he was officially invited by a Confer- 
ence of the Brethren's Church to undertake an entire re- 
vision of their large Hymn Book, The earliest specimens 
of Moravian psalmody in English appeared in 1746, a cu- 
rious volume, which gave place ten years later to one 
prepared by Bishop Gambold, and published by "autho- 
rity." This book had formed the basis of rej)eated editions 
since 1789, each expurgated and refined in its turn, imtil 
the book has assumed its final character in the version 
issued in 1849 under the prudent and zealous co-operation 
of " Brother James Montgomery" and the authorities of 
the Brethren's Church in Great Britain. 

" The labor," Mr. Holland tells us, " which Montgomery 
bestowed upon this work, can only be apprehended by any 
one who will compare, as we have done, the matter of the 
book now in use in the Brethren's English congregations 
with the text of the same book — if, indeed, it can be 
called the same — previous to the last revision. The vol- 
ume contains 1200 Hymns; and it is hardly too much to 
say, that the time and thought spent in the reformation 
of such a mass of matter, much of it of a peculiar charac- 
ter, Avas not less than would have sufficed for the composi- 
tion of a like quantity of original verse. Whether the 
result has been, in every respect, equal in value to the 
amount of toil and skill expended on the task, has been 
doubted by some persons; for the poet, having had to 
deal with compositions which had already undergone re- 
peated ordeals of a similar kind at the hands of men who 
attached much more importance to directness of doctrinal 
meaning, and fervor of pious expression, than to anything 



MONTGOMERY AN "INTERCESSOR." 397 

like poetic euphony or grace, he was often compelled either 
to change an obsolete or equivocal term, to soften down a 
too striking sentiment into a general meaning, or entirely 
to remodel the structure of a verse, or even of a whole 
liymn. The inevitable consequence of this procedure has 
been, that while the greater portion of the book has been 
rendered such as almost any congregation of Christians 
might adopt as to the sentiments, and any experienced 
poet approve as to the style, many of the hymns have 
certainly lost a good deal of their original and peculiar 
flavor — their ' race,' or, as Dr. Johnson explains it, ' the 
flavor of the soil on which they grew.' " 

As illustrating at once a feature of the Moravian com- 
munities and the spirituality of Montgomery's mind, it 
may be mentioned that he Avas appointed, as he had been 
on previous occasions, one of the " intercessors " of the 
Brethren's congregation at Fulneck, for the first quarter 
of the year 1850, This ofiice requires that the persons 
nominated to it " by lot, in the Elders' Conference," 
simultaneously devote a set evening in the week to 
prayer in behalf of the rehgious body to which they 
belong. 

CalUng one morning on Mr. Holland, to procure the 
volumes of the Quarterly Review for the years 1811-1812, 
"I have," he said, "just been reading the third volume of 
the Life of Southey, and I concluded it with painful feel- 
ings in reference to the tone of ignorance and prejudice in 
which he speaks of evangelical religion in general, and of 
Chi'istian missions in particular. I must, of course, have 
read the articles in question, when first published, but with 
less interest, as not then certainly knowing who was the 
author : besides, the letters just printed breathe a spirit of 
triumph on the part of the reviewer, both as to his purpose 

3i 



398 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

and materials of defamation, that stimulates my cm-iosity 
to see how he really dealt with what he evidently so little 
either understood or approved." 

Rev. Mr. Latrobe wishing to dedicate his little volume 
of songs and hymns to him, Montgomery thus replied : 

"Sheffield, June 1, 1850. 
" Rev. akd Deae Sir, 

" I thank you heartily for meeting my difficulty on 
the subject of the proposed inscription of your forthcoming 
Hymns to myself, — in a manner to which I catmot pretend 
to offer any objection. . . . What you say concerning 
the late Mr. Wordsworth aifected me much, as correspond- 
ing nearly with certain strictures of my own on the cha- 
racteristics of his moral system, as developed especially 
throughout his greatest jDoem, ' The Excursion ; ' on that 
work, at its first appearance, I wrote a critique for the 
' Eclectic Review,' in which I intimated, in language as 
courteous as I could, that ho forbore, when he describes 
his solitary skeptic searching from every other imaginable 
source, for consolation or hope, in his bewilderment of 
mind, — the poet forbore sending him to the only fountain 
whence refreshment and rest can be found for a wounded 
spirit and a heavy-laden soul, — the Gospel of Christ ; at 
the same time frigidly as well as vainly, though with won- 
derful pomj) of diction and splendor of illustration, ascrib- 
ing to the healing influences of Nature through her ele- 
mentary operations^ effects, which nothing but the grace of 
God can produce. Our good old brother Gambold's hymn, 
" That I am thine, my Lord, my God," reveals a personal 
experience^ in comparison of which all the theories and 
speculations of philosophers and philosophy falsely so 



NEW EDITION OF HIS WOKIvS. 399 

called, are vanities of vanity, and vexations of spirit, ut- 
terly unappeasing to the immortal part of mortal man. 
But I must break off; I have neither hand nor heart to 
proceed further than to pray that I could now sit down, 
and sing even to myself that jorecious testimony, laying 
the whole emphasis of my soul upon every line, especially 
on the second clause of the eighth verse : 

" ' Ah ! my heart throbs, and seizes fast 
That covenant which will ever last ; 
It knows — it knows these things are true^ 

" May you, and I, and all who may hereafter read or 
sing our hymns, be enabled to witness xhe same good con- 
fession !" 

May 6th. He presided, as usual, at the Wesleyan Mis- 
sionary Anniversary in Sheffield, 

Copies of the new edition of his works, which he was 
desirous of living to see, reached him on that day. 

The publishers having been instructed to transmit a copy 
to his old friend, Lucy Aikin, she acknowledges it with all 
her youthful vivacity : 

" Wimbledon, May 23d, 1850, 
" Accept my best thanks, my dear old friend, for the 
token of continued kind remembrance which I have re- 
ceived from you in the shape of a copy of the new edition 
of your poems. I rejoiced to see them in a shape so acces- 
sible to ' the million,' to use a fashionable phrase suited to 
our gigantic notions, I rejoiced to find them retaining 
all their popularity after so many years, and thus giving 
proof how true an echo they find in the hearts and imagin- 
ations of readers. 

" It pleased me even more to find that you still retained 



400 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

health and vigor to continue writing, and to undertake the 
labor of conducting so goodly a volume through the press. 
Would that I could still exert such energies ! but I have 
long given uj) the use of the pen from discouragement, and 
contented myself with feeding on the minds of others, and 
sometimes introducing young spirits to the works of the 
immortal masters. 

" Here, at Wimbledon, I reside nnder the roof of my 
dear brother Charles's eldest daughter, Mrs. Le Breton, 
with her husband and eight children, mostly girls, so that 
objects of tender interest are not wanting to me. 

" The last particular account of you which I heard, was 
from my old friends, the Aston Yateses, and a very pleasant 
picture they drew of you in your retirement. It seemed as 
if your health continued good, Avhicli I hope is still the 
case, and that you yet exchange gallantries with the young 
ladies [i.e., the Muses]. I am persuaded that the poetical 
temperament retains its elasticity best of all. I used to 
observe this in Mrs. Barbauld, who never lost her youth- 
fulness of fancy. ]\Iy dear brother Arthur, now the only 
brother left me, continues to occupy himself with chemistry. 
He still lectures on this science at Guy's Hospital, besides em- 
ploying himself very diligently in the many analyses which he 
is employed to make for various pu^rposes. A happier old man 
I nowhere know, and certainly not a more benevolent one. 

" You never visit London now, I fear ; and, as for me, 
my longest journeys, for some years past, have stretched 
no further than the eight miles between Wimbledon and 
London. Li this world, therefore, in all human probability, 
we shall meet no more ; but we may still think of each 
other with esteem and affection, and ho2:)e to meet in that 
world whither so many of our nearest and dearest have 
taken their flight before us." 



CRITICISM OF "IN MEMORIAM." 401 

Tennyson's " In Memoriam " is the talk of the literary 
TTorld. Has Montgomery read it ? He replies : — "I have 
read the poem carefully, I should say, resolutely through, 
M'hich I susf)ect not ten other persons in Sheffield have 
done; but I confess I cannot enjoy it. The title-page 
itself is an affectation of unmeaning simphcity, so much so, 
indeed, that I, who was not otherwise in the jjoet's secret, 
was some time before I could make out his subject from 
the opening verses, which, while they flowed as smoothly 
and brightly as transparent oil over a pohshed surface, 
might apply to a butterfly, or a bird, or a lady, as well as 
to the individual who I found after a while was indicated 
as their subject. If I had published such a volume forty 
years ago, Jeffrey would have gone down on both knees to 
curse me most earnestly. But times and tastes have 
altered, and Tennyson is the pet poet of the day." 

A few days after, its author was announced as Words- 
worth's successor to the i^oet-laureateship. 

Thomas Deakin, Esq., of Sheflield, who died in the 
month of August in the preceding year, having left by 
will the sum of three thousand j^ounds towards the found- 
ing of a charity for elderly unmarried women, on condition 
that a like sum of three thousand pounds should be raised 
by others, within two years after the death of the testator, 
Montgomeiy willingly joined a number of gentlemen in an 
effort to reahze this benevolent object. He also took part 
in what some of his townspeople regarded as a more ques- 
tionable proceeding, namely, in caUing, and seconding a 
resolution at, an anti-Catholic meeting. The resolution, 
indeed, was simply a vote expressive of gratitude to Lord 
John Russell for his recent admirable letter to the Bishop 
of Durham, for the thoroughly Protestant spirit which 

breathed through it ; and a promise of support to his lord- 
34* 



402 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

sbip in all bis endeavors to neutralize the aggressive policy 
of Rome, The proposition was objected to by a party in 
the meeting, on the ground of its inconsistency, — his 
lordship having, it was alleged, j^reviously acted in such a 
way towards the Papists as might well encourage them to 
aggressions like those complained of; nor did the few 
words used by Montgomery, — "I second the resolution 
with all my heart," — escape popular censure. The subject 
coming up in conversation afterwards, he said, that while 
he had never been a thorough-going party-man, and had 
never sought or expected to please people who were such, 
in the present case, as he had entirely agreed with Lord 
John Russell in reference to the necessity if not in the 
extent of Parliamentary reform, so he agreed with him 
generally in reference to Catholic emancipation ; but he 
perfectly agreed with him in his present protest against the 
recent act of Papal aggression. 

With an unabated interest in every public work, the 
talked of " Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Na- 
tions" early attracted his attention. The magnitude of the 
scheme, at first, almost awed him ; and the Crystal Palace 
seemed to him far surpassing all the dreams of poetry. He 
read with avidity the details of its progress and completion, 
and more and more regarding the exhibition as significant 
of the supremacy of the peaceful, and therefore the true 
industries of the world, he wept for joy over the account 
of its inauguration, splendor, and enthusiasm. Overcoming 
the timidity and feebleness of age, he determined once 
more to revisit London, and look upon this wonder of the 
age. Accompanied by Miss Gales, and convoyed by his 
neighbor, Mr. Mitchell, early in July, 1851, an easy journey 
was efiected to the metropolis. His brother Robert's 
house in Woolwich was their tarrying-place. But a single 



TOKENS OF ESTEEM. 403 

visit was paid to the Palace, liavclly sufficient for a passing 
glance at its princely galleries, lined with the skill and 
produce of all forms of Christian civihzation. The com- 
partment which i^articularly arrested the attention of the 
poet, was that containing printed specimens of the Scrip- 
tures in one hundred and sixty-five different languages. 

Renewed expressions of personal affection greeted him 
on his eightieth birth-day. On entering his sitting-room 
that morning, an elegant easy-chair of carved walnut oc- 
cupied his place, and what was to him of more value than 
any personal luxury, a purse of fifty sovereigns for the 
" Moravian Fund," and sixty sovereigns for the " Aged 
Female Society" — gifts which could only flow from the 
delicate perceptions and Christian sensibilities of wo- 
man. 

" Thanks, thanks, thanks," exclaimed the venerable old 
man ; " thrice and four times thanks to my birth-day bene- 
factors, for their precious tokens of good-will ' to a poor 
octogenarian.' 

" ' Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of 
my life,' and my heart's desire and prayer is that I may 
realize the fulfilment of the verse, ' to dwell in the house 
of the Lord forever.' " 

The same friends induced him to allow an artist to model 
his hkeness in profile for a " Montgomery Medal," to be 
given annually as a prize for the best drawing or casting of 
wild flowers produced by a pupil in the Sheffield " Govern- 
ment School of Design." 

At noon, resj^onding to a request which had been made 
at the annual meeting of Governors of the General In- 
firmary, Montgomery planted an oak tree on the lawn in 
front of the noble building ; and he stood there the sole 
survivor of all its founders fifty years before. 



404 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

" Montgomery ought to become expert in the use of the 
spade," said one of his friends. 

At the annual meeting of the School of Design the fol- 
lowing year, the Duke of York presiding, the revered bard 
was called upon to present the prize medal to the success- 
ful competitor. "This pubUc compliment is a testimony 
that you have done well," said he ; " always do your best, 
then you are sure always to do better." 

In July, he appeared for the last time as a public lec- 
turer, before the Literary and Philosophical Society, with 
whose origin and growth he was so closely identified. 
Many of liis friends felt it to be an outlay of pain he 
could ill afford, but many wished again to hear him, and 
to a repeated invitation he hesitatingly acquiesced. 

At the meeting of the Methodist Conference held in 
Shcfiield on the following month, though no laymen were 
allowed to attend its sessions, the general rule was in this 
instance set aside, and Montgomery received and accepted 
an invitation to be present, introduced by Dr. Hannah as a 
" venerable friend to whom Methodism was under great 
obligations." The services which they, as a religious body, 
had received from him having been gratefully acknowl- 
edged by the President, their distinguished visitor arose 
and, with patriarchal simplicity, replied with deep emotion, 
" I have little to say. Christian fathers, friends and brethren, 
but that little, so important in itself, I utter from my heart. 
' The Lord bless and keep you ! The Lord make his face 
to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you ! The Lord 
lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace ! ' in 
the name of Jesus. Amen." 

"No incident," says Dr. Bunting, "more tended to 
brighten and beautify the Conference of 1852 ;" for, as 
another preacher said, "even the venerable men present, 



RELIGION OF GRAY'S ELEGY. 405 

who had been the contemporaries of Wesley himself, 
seemed to be in the presence of an elder, when Mont- 
gomery, a member of the ancient Moi-avian Church, blessed 
the Conference, and the ' People called Methodists,' with 
the blessing wherewith Aaron and his sons blessed the 
children of Israel." 

In December, the Earl of Carlisle delivered before the 
Mechanics' Institution a lecture on the Poetry of Gray, and 
though Montgomery had long ceased to attend evening 
meetings, he was present on this occasion. Preceding the 
Earl to the platform, he was greeted with applause scarcely 
less enthusiastic than the welcome given to the lecturer, — a 
right hearty burst of English appreciation of her true men. 
The glowing expression of the old poet's face disclosed his 
interest m the lecture, his own views harmonizing with 
those of the sjieaker, in everything except that which related 
to the religious element of Gray's poetry and character. 

Montgomery, in his introductory essay to the Christian 
Poet, has already asked and answered an impartial question 
in reference to it : 

" WJiat God is intended in the last line of the Elegy, 
' The bosom of his father and his God ?' " he inquires. 
" Search every fragment of the writings of the celebrated 
author, and it will be difficult to answer this question, 
simple as it is, from them ; from the Elegy itself it would 
be impossible ; except that the God of the ' Youth to for- 
time and to fame unknown' is meant ; and that this may 
have been the true God, must be inferred from his worship- 
per having been buried ' in a country church-yard.' There 
is, indeed, a couplet like the following, in the body of 
the poem : 

" ' And many a lioly text around she strews, 
To teach the rustic moralist to die,' 



406 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

but throiigliout the whole there is not a single allusion to 
' an hereafter,' except what may be inferred, by courtesy, 
from the concluding line already mentioned. After the 
couj)let above quoted, the poet leaves his ' rustic moralist 
to die,' and very pathetically refers to the natural unwilling- 
ness of the humblest individual to be forgotten, and the 
'longing, lingering look,' which even the miserable cast 
behind, on leaving ' the warm precincts of the cheerful 
day ;' but hope nor fear, doubt nor faith, concerning a 
future state, seems ever to have touched the poet's ap- 
prehensions, exquisitely affected as he must have been with 
all that interests ' mortal man ' in the composition of those 
imrivalled stanzas; — unrivalled truly they are, though 
there is not an idea in them beyond the church-yard, in 
which they ai'e said to have been written." 

On the first of February, 1853, appeared "Original 
Hymns for Public, Social, and Private Devotion, by James 
Montgomery : " with the folio whig verse from one of them, 
as a motto, on the title page : 

" From young and old, with every breath, 
Let prayer and praise arise ; 
Life be ' the daily offering^ — death 
' The evening sacrifice.^ " 

In the preface, the author adverts to the extent to which 
his compositions of this class have been appropriated by 
compilers ; adding, tliat " of this he has never complained, 
being rather humbly thankful that any imperfect strains of 
his should be tlius employed in giving glory to God in the 
highest, promoting o>i earth jyeace, and diffusing good-will 
towards man." But of the liberties taken by some of these 
in modifying certain passages according to their peculiar 
tastes and notions, he must complain ; very properly sug- 



LETTER FROM LUCY AIKIN. 407 

gesting to such, that if they cannot " conscientiously adopt 
his diction and doctrine, it is surely unreasonable in them 
to impose uj^on him theirs, which he might as honestly 
hesitate to receive." He closes what he calls this " long 
preamble to the most serious work of a long life — now 
passing four-score years " — with the following appropriate 
lines from Bishop Ken : 

" And should the well-meant song I leave behind, 
With Jesus' lovers some acceptance find, 
'Twill heighten even the joys of heaven to know 
That LQ my verse saints sung God's praise below." 

Lucy Aikin, to whom he sent a volume, thus pleasantly 
acknowledges it : 

" Dear Friend, 

" Many thanks to you for your kind present of your 
volume of Hymns. They were very agreeable and accept- 
able to me, not alone as a proof of your never-failing re- 
membrance and friendship, but for their own merits. I 
tell you the sunplest truth in saying, that I regard you as 
quite at the head of all living writers of this kind of poetry 
"within my knowledge. Your hymns have an earnestness, 
a fervor of piety, and an unmistakeable sincerity which 
goes straight to the heart. In the style, too, you are per- 
fectly successful, and it is one in which few are masters. 
Cleai', direct, simple, plain to the humblest member of a 
congregation, yet glowing with poetic fire, and steeped in 
Scripture : not in its peculiar phrases so much, which might 
give an air of quaintness, as filled with its sj^irit, and with 
allusions to its characters and incidents often extremely 
happy, and what might well be called ingenious. My 
father would not have for^-otten to add a merit to which 



408 LIFE OF MONTGOMEKY. 

he was extremely sensible, as indeed am I — that the lines 
flow very harmoniously, and are richly rhymed — with 
their full complement of two to a stanza. This is an aid to 
the memory as well as the immediate eflect. I rejoice that 
you lend your powerful support to the anti-Calvinistio 
theology, and strenuously inculcate that every man may he 
saved if he pleases. 

" Although you may think it right to bridle your indig- 
nation against the interpolators of your Hymns, there is no 
reason I should : and I do not. It is an intolerable fraud 
— worse by far than forging one's name to a cheque ; and 
nothing, I suppose, but the paucity of really good hymns 
which speak exactly the language of this or that compiler 
for a congregation, could have temjited decent people to be 
guilty of it. Poor Dr. Watts has been victimized to such 
an extent in this manner for a century past, that I have 
been told a genuine Watts is now a curiosity scarcely any- 
where to be met with. Better fate be yours ; but I dare 
not promise it you, if you will write so well, and enounce 
your doctrines with so much point and force, instead of 
dwelling in neutral generalities, equally suited to all sects 
of Christians. 

"Are you aware that I have again taken up my abode 
in the old spot where we saw each other's face for the last 
time, doubtless, in this world ? Yes ; last Christmas 
twelve month, I quitted Wimbledon with my niece and her 
family, after what had been to me a five years' sojourn in a 
strange place, and came with them to dear old Hampstead, 
where I have a few friends and relations still remaining, 
whose society is worth far more to me than the most 
splendid new acquaintances could possibly be. One dear 
brother, my eldest, is still left me ; and we are but three 
miles apart. Here I am in the midst of an amiable young 



HIS LAST HYMNS. 409 

flimily, to whom I feel myself almost a grandmamma. 
Many, many blessings to be thankful for at the age of 
seventy-one ! Of your health I have lately heard good 
tidings. Long may it continue ! Believe me ever, dear 
and respected friend, yours most sincerely, 

" Lucy Aikin. 
" Hampstead, February 13, 1853." 

The year 1854 broke stormily over England. The sever- 
ity and length of the cold kept all prudent invalids within 
doors, and especially barred the aged from their accus- 
tomed out-door air and exercise. Montgomery imprisoned 
himself for many weeks, and went out but seldom, until 
longer days gave promise of warmer weather. 

Tardy spring at last threw its emerald folds over the 
fields, and the poet again went forth rejoicing in the joy of 
beautiful and well-created things. 

His friends marked an increasing feebleness of body, 
while the mind, with occasionally a slight failure of memory, 
retained its wonted relish for books, conversation, and all 
the stirring incidents of the times. His correspondence 
had flagged ; the hand, not the heart, rendering unwil- 
ling obedience to the monitions of friendship or of poetry. 

Two hymns, composed in April, were, " the last fruit 
off an old tree ;" one to gratify a friend, and the other for 
the " little ones " of the Sunday-school Union, an evangel- 
ical alliance alw'ays dear to the poet's heart. 

Easter, a high festival among the Mora^dans, Montgom- 
ery designed to spend at Fulneck. Listead of going, how- 
ever, he despatched a letter, excusing his absence. It was 
addressed to his favorite niece Harriet, now Mrs. Mallalien, 
who says : 

" My dear micle frequently spent part of the Passion 
35 



410 LIFE OF M02s'TG0jiEiiY. 

Week and Easter with us, both at Ockbrook and Fulneck. 
I heard from Iiim very early in AvsrU ; and his last letter to 
me was dated on the 12th, not much more than a fortnight 
before he left his earthly for his heavenly home. I was 
looking at his letter last night, and cannot help transcribing 
a sentence or two from it. He says : 

" ' To-morrow, had I been free from hindrance otherwise 
than personal, I should have indeed been happy to have 
made an Easter campaign to the scene of my childhood, 
and the best days of my youth : to live the latter over 
again ; and especially to spend another Maundy Thursday, 
which then was (I may frankly own it) to me the happiest 
day in the year : the evening reading in the chapel, of our 
Saviour's agony and bloody sweat in the Garden of Gcth- 
semane, was almost always a season of holy humbling and 
affecting sympathy of my soul with His, who then was 
wont to make His presence felt. And on Good Friday, 
Great Sabbath, and Easter Sunday, each had its peculiar 
visits in spirit, and of these the remembrance is sweet and 
consoling ; and even yet, after so many years of estrange- 
ment and unfaithfulness on my part, since I chose my poiv 
tion for myself in the world, rather than in my Father's 
house and among my Christian brethren, I can say, — 
" Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his bene- 
fits ! " — hoj^ing, praying, and earnestly desiring that I may 
yet add the context — (Ps. ciii. 3, 4,) " Who forgiveth all 
tliine iniquities ; who healeth all thy diseases ; who re- 
decmeth thy life from destruction ; who crowneth thee 
with loving-kindness and tender mercies." ' Then he adds, 
with all his own warmth of affection, ' Now my dear, dear 
Harriet, may you and your children, and your best of 
mothers, ever, ever be enabled to offer such thanksgivings 
daily and to the end.' 



THE CLOSING SCENE, 411 

" I do value that letter, wi'itten so shortly before his 
death. The season of the year coming round again [Easter, 
1855], too, has made the last year dwell much on my mind ; 
so fondly had my dear mother and I hoped to have seen 
uncle here ; and now they have both joined the Church 
Triumphant ! " 

For, the places which knew him so intimately and so 
long, were soon to know him no more. 

On the last Friday in April he attended as usual the 
weekly board-meeting of the Infirmary, of whicli, for 
many years he had been chairman ; and on Saturday after- 
noon called upon Mr. Holland at his oiEce in the Music 
Hall, To an inquiry about his health, " I feel considerable 
oppression Aere," he answered, laying his hand on his breast 
— and a shade of more than usual thoughtfuhiess rested 
upon his countenance. 

At evening worship, he requested Miss Gales to read 
the Scriptures, when he led the devotional service with an 
earnestness and pathos which excited the attention of the 
family. No comjilaint, however, fell from his lij^s, and he 
retired as usual with nothing to indicate that this was his 
last " good night." 

Sabbath morning dawned, and at eight one of the serv- 
ants knocked at his door, but receiving no answer, she 
opened it and saw her master insensible on the floor. 

The family were soon aroused, and assistance speedily 
came, and he was returned to his bed, while consciousness 
seemed flitting back. 

A physician was summoned, and the patient ralHed, so rap- 
idly, indeed, that everything promised a speedy restoration. 

As Miss Gales sat and watched at his bedside during the 
aftei'noon, a sudden change came over his face. He seemed 
to have been sleeping — 



412 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

"'No — life had s-weetly ceased to be : 
It lapsed in immortality ;" 

and soon the solemn tolling of the church-bell spread the 
tiduigs round that Sheffield had lost its most beloved and 
distinguished citizen. A great and good man had fallen. 
It Avas the 30th of April, 1854. 

The funeral took place on the 11th of May, amidst such 
demonstrations of respect as were never paid to any indi- 
vidual in Sheffield before. The shops were generally 
closed. Manufactories and other places of business were 
deserted. The houses showed signs of mourning. Along 
the route of procession, the house-tops and windows, and 
the sides of the streets, were filled with respectful specta- 
tors. Great numbers of people were upon the parish and 
St. Paul's churches, in the church-yards, and on every eleva- 
tion that commanded a view of the route. 

The following was the order of the procession, and of 
the proceedings at the place of interment : 

Mounted Police. 
Two Mutes. 
Deputations from the Committees and Managers of the Church of 
England Instruction Society ; the Sheffield Mechanics' Library ; the 
Athenseum ; the Lyceum ; the Red Ilill Schools ; Sunday-school 
Union ; Lancasterian Schools ; People's College ; Government School 
of Design ; Rotherham College ; Slicfficld Library ; Literary and 
Philosophical Society. 

Gentlemen of the Town and Neighborhood in Carriages ; 

Managers of the Savings' Bank ; 

CDUimittee and Medical Officers of the Sheffield Public Dispensary ; 

Managers of the Aged Female Society ; 

Directors of the United Gas-Light Company ; 

Board of Guardians for Sheffield ; 

The Weekly Board and Medical Officers of the Sheffield General 

Infirmary j 



ORDER OF FUNERAL PROCESSION, 413 

The Police Commissioners ; 

The Ecclesall Highway Board ; 

The Board of Highways for the Townslaip of Sheffield ; 

Dissenting Ministers ; 

Wesleyan Ministers ; 

The Church Burgesses ; 

The Town Regent, and Trustees ; 

The Master Cutler (W. A. Matthews, Esq.), and Company ; 

Bishop and Ministers of the Church of the United Brethren ; 

The Vicar of Sheffield and twenty-four of the Clergy ; 

Officers of the West Eiding Yeomanry ; 

Coroner and Deputy Coroner for the District: 

•« The Magistrates for the Borough ; 

The Magistrates for the West Riding; 

Clerk to the Magistrates ; 

The Judge and Treasurer of the County Court ; 

The Mayor, (Francis Hoole, Esq., attended by Mr. Raynor, Chief 

Constable,) and Corporation ; 

G. Hadfield, Esq., M.P. for Sheffield ; 

The Funeral Committee ; 

William Favell, Esq., Surgeon to the Deceased ; 

Thomas Gould, Esq., SoUcitor to the Deceased ; 

PALL-BEARERS. PALL-BEARERS. 

Rev. H. Farish. Rev. Thomas Best. 

Rev. Jas. Metliley. THE BODY, Rev. S. D. Waddy. 

Rev. C. Larom. In a hearse drawn Rev. J. H.' Muir. 

SamL Roberts, Esq. by six horses. Samuel Baily, Esq. 

Four Mourning Coaches ; 

In the first coach, Robert Montgomery, of Woolwich, brother of the 

deceased ; the Rev. John James Montgomery, Miss Gales, 

and Mrs. Foster, niece of the deceased ; 

Second coach, Mrs. MallaHen, niece of the deceased ; Mrs. John 

James Montgomery, Mr. John Holland, and the 

Rev. W. Mercer ; 

Third and fourth coaches, the Pall-Bearers. Each coach was drawn 

by four horses : 
35* -^ 



414 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

Gentlemen of the Town and Neigliborhood on foot ; 

Deputation of the Montgomery Sick Society, 

Deputation of Scripture Readers ; 

Masters of Wesley College ; 

Twenty Gownsmen and one hundred of the Scholars of 

Wesley College; 

Pupils of Dr. Munro's School , 

Gentlemen of the Town and Neighborhood on horseback ; 

Mounted PoHce. 

About an hour elapsed from the arrival of the first i^art 
of the procession at the gates of the cemetery before the 
hearse, with its attendants, reached the consecrated enclo- 
sure, where the coffin was taken out of the hearse, and the 
pall-bearers assumed their places ; the vicar in his gown, 
and the Rev. George Sandford in his suiplice, preccdmg the 
solemn cortege u^) the avenue, and through the winding 
roads of the cemetery. It had been arranged to admit ladies 
into the cemetery ground at an early hour in the forenoon, 
and they formed its principal occupants when the funeral en- 
tered. But crowds of spectators were to be seen at all the 
adjacent points commanding a view of the ground ; and on 
the hill-side, across the valley, were hundreds of observers. 
When the procession had entered, the gates were opened to 
the public, and a dense assemblage quickly filled the ground. 
The favorable state of the weather permitted the whole of 
the burial service to be performed in the open air ; the Rev. 
T. Sale, M.A., the vicar, and the Rev. G. Sandford, M.A., 
the chaplain of the cemetery, officiating. At its conclusion, 
the vicar said : " Having committed the body of our dear 
, brother to the grave, in the full belief of his triumphant 
resiu'rection, let us sing over his grave one of tlinse hymns 
which in past days he composed for one gone before him : * 

* Dr. Owen, Secretary of the Bible Society, who died 1822. 



HIS rUNEEAL HYMN. 415 

" ' Go to tlie grave ; though, like a fallen tree, 

At once with verdure, flowers, and fruitage crowned, 
Thy form may perish, and thine honors be 

Lost in the mouldering bosom of the ground ; — 

" ' Go to the grave, which, faithful to its trust. 
The germ of immortality shall keep ; 
While safe, as watched by cherubim, thy dust 
Shall, till the judgment-day, in Jesus sleep. 

" ' Go to the grave, for there thy Saviour lay 
In Death's embraces, ere He rose on high ; 
And all the ransomed, by that narrow way, 
Pass to eternal life beyond the sky. 

" ' Go to the grave ; — no, take thy seat above ; 
Be thy pure spirit present with the Lord, 
Where thou, for faith and hope, hast perfect love, 
And open vision for the written Word.' " 

After the retirement of the mourners, liunclreds of per- 
sons crowded round the grave to take a farewell look at 
the coffin, of plam oak, with a silvered plate bearing the 
following inscription : 

James JiIoxtgomery, 

Died April the 30th, 1854, 

In the 83rd year of his Age. 

Montgomery left an estate of £9,000. Generous legacies 
were willed to several Moravian institutions and city char- 
ities. But dear friends were not forgotten, and the re- 
mainder was equally shared between the two families of 
his brothers. 

Thus peacefully closed a long and useful life. Changes, 
almost marvellous, took place within its more than four- 
score years. The American colonies had broken from the 
parent stock and grown to a mighty nation. England 



416 LIFE OF MONTGOMERY. 

had had her Foxes, Pitts, and Wellingtons. Steam had 
changed rough Atlantic voyages into holiday trips. Lum- 
bering mail-coaches 'svere outrun by the furious drive of 
the fieiy horse. Gas had left the laboratory of the chemist 
and become drilled to nightly service. The Avildest freaks of 
electricity had entered into the soberest calculations of busi- 
ness. Protestant Christianity burst forth with new power. 
Its agencies had spanned the world. The Bible, with its 
sturdy vitality, became the recognized civilizer of man. 
Missionary institutions grew into a commercial value. And 
all around, the common industries of life are vigorous and 
gainful only as they are nourished by the redeeming influ- 
ences of the gospel. 

"With the religious progress of his time, Montgomery 
identilied himself Life was an earnest and responsible 
work with him. He had something to do for the moral ren- 
ovation of others, and his heart was in doing it. England 
and the world are better that he and such men have lived. 

His piety embalms his genius. And long after j^rouder 
literary achievements shall have been buried in the dust of 
the Past, his simple hymns will linger on the lip of devo- 
tion, and nestle in the loving hearts of believers from the 
Moravian altars of Herrnhut to the " forest sanctuaries " 
of the tropics. 

The worth of a Christian life, time cannot diminish, and 
nothing can destroy. It has an imperishable value in the 
treasury of that Kingdom which will finally swallow up 
all the powers and principalities of earth. 



THE END, 



